Gov. Ron DeSantis desires the Florida Supreme Court docket to empanel a grand jury to analyze potential wrongdoing by the medical group relating to the way it knowledgeable Floridians about COVID-19 vaccines and their precise efficacy.
In different phrases, DeSantis is in search of the creation of a Fact and Reconciliation Fee, of types, to carry accountable those that have supposedly failed to totally shield Florida towards a virus that’s killed greater than 83,000 on this state since early 2020.
Extra:Florida: The ‘freedom state’ that also is not freed from COVID
However allow us to by no means lose sight of the next:
Over the previous two years, few leaders have outdone DeSantis in discouraging masks mandates which have clearly been helpful, blocking entry to vaccine pictures which have clearly saved lives and downplaying the gravity of a worldwide pandemic that has clearly been catastrophic, with greater than 1 million lives misplaced in the US alone.
Given all that, if any panel must be conjured as much as demand that amends are made for failing to safeguard Florida’s well-being amid COVID, shouldn’t DeSantis be among the many first summoned to seem earlier than it?
Doesn’t our governor have way more to reply for relating to COVID’s grim impression on Florida than members of the scientific group? They’ve actually achieved way more to decrease the pandemic’s toll than he has, with their exceptional efforts to rapidly develop, distribute and administer a spread of life-saving medication.
The traditional knowledge is that DeSantis is clamoring for a grand jury to analyze the science group as a result of it’s: a) one other strategy to increase his 2024 presidential aspirations (particularly amongst America’s all-too-sizeable contingent of COVID vaccine skeptics, and b) one other strategy to settle scores with medical specialists who’ve admirably pushed again towards the governor’s marketing campaign to encourage Floridians to disregard the realities of COVID.
However neither of these causes – or another, for that matter – can probably justify DeSantis’ newest try and deal with COVID as an inexpensive political alternative, and never as a severe public well being challenge.
That is why relating to DeSantis’ name for others to be held accountable on COVID in our state, this three-word reply ought to suffice:
You first, governor.
– This editorial was written by Opinion Editor Roger Brown for the Herald-Tribune Editorial Board.
This text initially appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Gov. DeSantis ought to look within the mirror for accountability on COVID
