FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

Always liked this one.

•   One of the many weird epiphenomena of the conservative COVID movement is their celebrations of Trumpian Governors like Ron DeSantis as heroes of the pandemic. DeSantis in particular has overseen 3.6 million cases and 59,495 deaths and arguably drove these dismal numbers with his insane anti-vaccine-mandate and anti-mask ordinances, yet every time he gets to the other side of one of his self-generated disease waves, conservatives cry “Where Does Ron DeSantis Go To Get His Apology?” The same thing is happening now as the latest appalling Florida summer wave subsides; Karol Markowicz at the New York Post is not only praising DeSantis’ purgative approach but endorsing it for the rest of the country. Her lede is a classic case of disguising cause and effect by reversing their order.   

Florida has the lowest COVID-19 case rate in the country. They did it without vaccine mandates, without mask mandates in school and with no restrictions on businesses. Life simply went on. 

Over the summer, when Florida was experiencing a spike in cases, the media was wall-to-wall news about the numbers. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was a frequent target for the blame. His sensible moves, such as not forcing low-risk kids to wear masks, was treated as akin to murder by the media.

In other words, DeSantis allowed the uninhibited spread of the disease to jack up the numbers, and when the virus hit a firebreak of the dead and sickened, and infections paused, he and acolytes like Markowicz could say, “Look how low it is now!” Which is rather like saying, “once the patient died his fever went down.” 

And, given the experience of countries like Iran,  Florida will have even more waves and spikes in the future -- which is great, because as each wave recedes there’ll be more “Look how much it dropped, where’s his apology” talking point opportunities. And it will be compared favorably to places like New York City because, having used mandates and other public health measures to crush their COVID numbers, they won’t have any dramatic drops to report -- which will of course mean they aren’t doing as well. 

•   I mentioned two Roy Edroso Breaks It Down freebies for the week in previous alicublog installments, but here are the links again: The one about Ross Douthat’s Lyme Disease/COVID skepticism, and the one about that evergreen topic, rightwingers mad at a commercial.