While Covid-19 Skyrockets, Florida’s Gov. DeSantis And Surgeon General Ladapo Are Still Spreading Misinformation

Final September, Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Dr. Joseph Ladapo as his surgeon normal. Ladapo was a controversial alternative on the time—and it’s solely gotten worse.

Be aware that Ladapo is a cardiovascular doctor. He has no coaching in epidemiology, virology, or infectious ailments. Ladapo was a signatory to the Great Barrington Declaration, selling “herd immunity” and normalization of actions. He’s been concerned in selling the beliefs of America’s Frontline Docs, a right-wing “fringe” group that fuels misinformation about ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

Amongst his different atypical (for a public well being official) beliefs are his  opposition to masks and vaccines and his declare that vaccination has “been handled nearly like a faith, and that’s simply mindless.” Maybe that’s a part of why the vaccination charge in Florida just isn’t superb; Florida ranks 22^nd of the states, with a 63% vaccination charge. Florida went as far as to pull advertisements for vaccines off the air.

On Christmas Day, the Florida Division of Well being tweeted, “One of the best ways to unfold Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to listen to!” This recommendation was extremely ill-advised, as singing has long been shown to be a serious danger for spreading Covid.

Immediately, Ladapo and DeSantis held one other press convention, echoing lots of the similar themes he has up to now and once more filled with deceptive statements. 

“We have to unwind this testing—kind of planning and dwelling one’s life round testing. With out it, we’re going to be kind of caught in the identical cycle,” Ladapo mentioned. “It’s actually time for individuals to be dwelling,” he continued. “To make the selections they need concerning vaccination and to get pleasure from the truth that many individuals have pure immunity and to unwind this preoccupation with solely COVID as figuring out the boundaries and constraints and prospects of life.”

That is significantly disturbing, occurring as Florida experiences one other surge of an infection. For the reason that starting of Covid in 2020, greater than 4.1 million Floridians have been contaminated, and 62,504 have died. The 7-day transferring common of instances was 43,168 as of Jan. 1 and 62,504 deaths. But solely 72% of these eligible (>12-years outdated) have been vaccinated, and Ladapo and DeSantis eschew masking, although that has been proven to be efficient in lowering Covid transmission. 

On the similar time, as each DeSantis and Ladapo rail towards generally accepted and cheap public well being controls for Covid—masks and vaccinations—they each are keen to advertise monoclonal antibody therapies. REGEN-COV (casirivimab and imdevimab) value taxpayers $2100 per dose vs. $20 for vaccination. Seven southern states have accounted for 70% of the REGEN-COV use. The Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) specified that the drug was not an alternative to vaccination. That monoclonal antibody is not efficient towards Omicron. The most recent monoclonal antibody, which is efficient, is sotrovimab, at $2200/dose. 

On the press convention, Thomas Kennedy, an organizer and “identified agitator,” tried to ask DeSantis and Lapado why Florida’s state-operated testing sites have been closed since May. He didn’t obtain a response. The state officials have refused to reopen testing sites regardless of requests from hard-hit counties.

Reporter Jeffrey Schweers noted the “signal on podium says ‘Early Therapy Saves Lives.’ Context: Ladapo despatched a letter to HHS accusing Biden of not sending sufficient monoclonal antibody therapies to Florida…The day after Ladapo despatched his letter to HHS, the federal authorities despatched 2,580 doses of Sotromivab to Florida, on prime of 1,050 doses despatched beforehand.” Why ought to they be allowed to have a disproportionate quantity of sotromivab or Paxlovid, that are in terribly restricted provides, when their insurance policies gasoline Covid, one would possibly ask. 

Be aware within the video beneath that neither Ladapo nor these surrounding him are sporting masks on the Broward Well being Heart.

There was a swift and powerful backlash towards Ladapo’s press convention from actual specialists in combatting Covid. Ashish Jha, Dean of Brown’s College of Public Well being, tweeted:

Michael Mina, MD/PhD, an immunologist and epidemiologist added:

There may be some chatter on Twitter that DeSantis and Lapado are about to problem their very own testing orders, which can exclude youngsters. We’ll have to attend and see, however this could be in step with their statements about solely testing high-risk people or what they name “high-value testing.”