In an effort to “Buck the CDC” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and recently appointed Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced new COVID guidelines for Floridians. They are entitling the effort “Buck the CDC.”
In a flyer pushed out by the governor’s office, the new guidance includes four proposals: end corporate masking, right to try treatments, keep kids in school, and reduce isolation.
“People want to live freely in Florida, without corporate masking creating a two-tier society and without overbearing isolation for children,” said DeSantis. “We are empowering health care practitioners to follow science, not Fauci’s status quo.”
In an official statement from the governor’s office, a new priority is the need to end mask mandates for employees.
“Despite a lack of evidence that masks, and particularly cloth face coverings, prevent the transmission of COVID-19, many corporations have continued to require their employees to wear masks at work, regardless of the situation. Unlike CDC guidance, Florida’s new masking guidance advises against wearing facial coverings in a community setting. There is not strong evidence that masks reduce the transmission of respiratory illness.”
The Florida Department of Health cites a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study which “found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”
The attacks on forced mask wearing come after DeSantis recently said he was perturbed by traveling and speaking at different events where patrons were not required to wear masks but the employees were.
“I hate to say it, but I think we need a workers’ bill of rights on some of this stuff,” DeSantis said, so that people can “breathe freely.”
Also among the new guidelines include reducing COVID isolation to five days, limiting child isolation to five days for child daycare, and public-school student isolation to five days.
In a video posted to Rumble, DeSantis and Ladapo announced the new guidelines. In the video, the two officials said much of the CDC guidance “is not the best guidance.”
“There’s never been any evidence that this has benefited employees, there’s never been any evidence that it benefited patrons to businesses,” Ladapo said regarding mask requirements. “And we’re not recommending it here in Florida. And we just have to make decisions like this when the CDC, unfortunately, has become politicized and are making decisions that are not reflecting the highest quality of evidence.”
Too many workers, especially in service and retail industries, have been made to toil under corporate forced masking policies, creating a two-tiered society.
Thanks to the @FLSurgeonGen for issuing new guidance recommending against corporate forced masking policies. pic.twitter.com/ELcrsVdR7V
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) February 24, 2022
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Grant Holcomb is a reporter at The Florida Capital Star and The Star News Network. Follow Grant on Twitter and direct message tips.
Photo “Ron DeSantis” by Ron DeSantis.
