Crossfire: Did Florida Get It Right with Covid?

Since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, Florida has questioned the effectiveness of face masks. Art: Alika Awan

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YES

By RACHEL DONG

Daria Pozhoga and Alondra Brooks contributed to this article.

“Florida Man wrecks liquor store, blames it on caterpillar.” “Florida man arrested after punching ATM for ‘giving him too much money.’” “Florida Man rides manatee, dares police to arrest him, gets arrested.”

We’ve all seen the headlines. Just search “Florida Man” followed by your birthday to find out what kind of Florida Man you are. It’s easy to make fun of the Sunshine State, which has a reputation for being dysfunctional, and the state took a lot of criticism in the media for the way they handled Covid. But as New York comes out of its Covid bubble, something Florida did way back in June 2020, it begs the question: Did Florida actually get this one right?

Florida never had a mask or vaccine mandate, closed schools for only three months, and essentially reopened everything nearly two years ago. Meanwhile, New York, a state with a similar size and population, has treated Covid completely differently. It kept schools closed all last year while Florida’s were open, had mask mandates for all ages and vaccine mandates for ages 5+, and had extensive, long-lasting capacity limits and business regulations.

As of April 24, Florida’s total death rate from Covid was 344 people per 100,000 population, while New York’s rate was 347 per 100,000, according to the CDC and the New York Times.

One important factor is that New York was the epicenter of the pandemic during Spring 2020, and Florida learned a lot during the time New York was averaging over 900 deaths a day without the equipment and knowledge to fight the virus. However, another important factor is that the virus is much more harmful to the 65+ age group, and while Florida has the second highest population of elderly in the country, New York ranks just 25th.

The fact that the states have about equal death rates, even while accounting for size and Florida’s elderly population (most of whom voluntarily got vaccinated), has led Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to take a few victory laps. “Florida is ground zero for the nursing home. We’re God’s waiting room,” DeSantis said, explaining that the state made vaccinating seniors a priority.

On October 29, he said, “Without mandates or lockdowns, Covid-19 cases in Florida have decreased 90% since [the Delta wave in] August. In addition to cases, hospitalizations have plummeted in our state.”

“A year and a half ago, we started with ‘15 days to slow the spread,’ and now it’s gone to ‘get jabbed or lose your job,’” he said, criticizing other states’ unending restrictions and vaccine mandate policies. 

New York’s long-term shutdown has resulted in suffering businesses and a slower economic recovery. Remote learning has caused concern about development in young children, a rise in anxiety and depression, and significant academic losses for all ages.

The tropical weather in Florida has certainly helped the state, as it encourages outdoor activities, and it has been proven that the virus spreads less easily outdoors than in cramped indoor spaces.

The sunny beaches and palm trees of Florida, as well as the state’s nonrestrictive Covid policies, attracted an estimated 330,000 people to move there between April 2020 and April 2021. Move.org reports that Florida was the number one destination for relocating Americans in 2020, with 15% of all new residents coming from New York.

Combining factors such as health, the economy, and social and educational issues, Politico crunched the numbers to gather an average of how each state fared overall during the pandemic. Florida ended up 15th, and New York was 45th.

Florida has been criticized as “careless.” The point of New York’s and many other states' extreme approach was to stop the spread of Covid. But if Florida reached the same end result without all of these mandates, what was the point of having the mandates in the first place?

NO

By ALIKA AWAN

Florida simply got lucky that its blind approach to Covid didn’t destroy the state. Ron DeSantis’s government could’ve saved many more lives if they took the pandemic seriously instead of boasting about their low Covid case rates.

Florida had it much worse than New York during the Covid-19 Delta wave. From June 29 to October 29, 2021, its death toll was a little over 21,000, averaging about 173 deaths daily, according to NBC News. During that period, the state government never declared a state of emergency. 

New York, on the other hand, hit its peak death rate back when the pandemic first started, with nearly 1,000 deaths per day in April, 2020. But the highest death count for New York during the Delta wave was on September 9, when 68 people died. It’s pretty obvious that New York’s strict masking and vaccine mandates saved many lives from the deadly Delta variant.

While Florida was failing to stop unnecessary deaths, conservative media supported the state with misleading information. On November 2, Fox News host Laura Ingraham said, “Florida is one of the big Covid success stories that the media would prefer to ignore altogether. Now the Sunshine State has one of the lowest daily case and death rates out there, after months of saying that Ron DeSantis was responsible for death and destruction.” That might have been temporarily true, but Florida’s total Covid case rate throughout the pandemic has been higher than the national average – not one of the lowest.

Ingraham later said, “Meanwhile, Florida's economy is booming, and they're leading the country in job creation.” Currently, the unemployment rate in Florida is at 3.3 percent, compared to the United States’ 3.8 percent — not much of a difference. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are eight states with a lower unemployment rate than Florida’s: Georgia, Oklahoma, Utah, West Virginia, Arkansas, Montana, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. Texas, which is also against vaccine mandates, has an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent. 

With a place as crowded as New York, vaccine mandates were the right way to go. New York City has a population of 8.8 million, nearly half of the state’s entire population. Additionally, 52.8% of workers in the city use public transit, according to the Census Bureau. Over half of NYC is constantly packed in crowded subways and trains. Only 1.6% of workers in Florida use public transportation as part of their commute. The risks just aren’t the same.

DeSantis was inaccurate when he said masks “don’t do anything” in early March. Yes, studies show that masking isn’t as effective as it was glorified to be, but proper masking with a K95 does help slow down the spread of Covid. I got Covid during January despite being fully vaccinated, and with proper social distancing and masking, I was able to avoid spreading it to my family. Even with the Omicron variant, masks helped me keep others safe.

Also, the downsides of masks are overstated. The CDC published a study that said hospital workers reported no difficulties breathing when it came to oxygen and carbon dioxide levels with masks. 

Some might be concerned that learning might be impacted with masks, since half of a person’s face is covered. But studies show that emotion perception limitations from masking is essentially the same as the limitations from wearing sunglasses. “A study of two-year-old children concluded that they were able to recognize familiar words presented without a mask and when hearing words through opaque masks,” the report also stated.

Florida is boasting about how it irresponsibly handled the pandemic. Its economy has done fine, but it’s too much to call it a “boom,” and not mandating vaccines led to thousands of preventable hospitalizations during the Delta wave. The state was lucky it wasn’t hit worse. Florida’s government should make vaccines mandatory so serious harm doesn’t occur from any future waves. Meanwhile, New Yorkers should feel confident that their state made the right choices.