THE DESANTIS FLU:

A little over a year later, DeSantis is making COVID-19 headlines again, but not for his efforts to contain a virus he had prematurely declared victory over. Rather, the Florida governor is demonstrating a remarkably callous disregard for human life as his state is swamped by the pandemic.

As of Friday, Florida hospitals were treating some 17,000 COVID-19 patients, including more than 3,550 in intensive care, according to tallies by the Washington Post. The need for oxygen to treat patients has become so dire in some regions that Orlando officials implored residents Friday to conserve water in order to preserve the liquid oxygen used in water treatment.

At the same time, heated disputes over masking in schools are erupting as children return to school andthousands of students and staff have already been forced to either isolate or quarantine. DeSantis himself helped stoke the mask fury by banning school districts from requiring universal masking--the only available line of defense for kids under 12 and too young to get the vaccine.

When some school districts revolted by issuing mask mandates anyway, DeSantis threatened to dock the pay of school officials who implemented mandates. At least five of Florida's 67 school districts have now defied DeSantis' ban, including the state's largest and second largest districts, Miami-Dade and Broward.

While his state convulses with chaos, anxiety, illness, and death, DeSantis is happily preening and punishing for the cameras.

On Friday, DeSantis' handpicked Board of Education announced school officials in Broward and Alachua counties--two of the first to implement mask mandates--would lose their salaries unless they reversed their masking policy in the next couple days. The threat very well may not shake their resolve, as both President Biden and citizen activists have pledged to make up for any shortfall in funding.

Politically, taking punitive action against school districts that mandate masks is an abysmal move, with just 22% of Americans supporting the idea. But what's a GOP 2024 hopeful to care when Fox News is salivating to give him primetime slots even as he ensures COVID-19 will inflict maximal damage on his constituents.

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