Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday said the establishment media presents coronavirus coverage in a way to “create angst in the population” and said there is no reason to shut down society, as many testing positive for the virus have little-to-no symptoms.
“They try to present in a way that is most likely to create angst in the population. There’s just no doubt about it,” DeSantis said of the corporate media’s coverage during a press conference in Cape Coral.
“For example, you have this situation, you saw it in Great Britain, you saw it in Israel … you see these cases going up. Same with the Sun Belt. Florida, Texas, all these other states, you’re seeing that,” he said, explaining that the media is not putting the situation in its proper context.
While he said the vaccines likely offer “pretty good protection against serious illness,” people are still testing positive for the virus after getting vaccinated. However, the cases appear to be extremely mild.
According to the CDC, there have been “5,914 patients with COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infection who were hospitalized or died” out of 161 million-plus vaccinated.
“Clearly people are testing positive. I mean it’s not preventing positive tests. And so you’re seeing that over and over again. At the end of the day though, if you’re testing positive and you have a mild or asymptomatic, that’s not something we should get spun up about,” DeSantis said.
“But I think it’s not presented in the right context. And what I’ve found is whatever indicator they can do to say is bad, they will do. If there’s good indicators, you just never hear about it. You never hear about it,” he continued, also noting the existence of the seasonal viral curves which existed long before the Chinese coronavirus.
Florida’s main season, the governor said, is in the summer, but he expects it to begin to become more prevalent in northern parts of the country as fall and winter approach.
“I just think people should understand … if you are vaccinated — or if you’ve had COVID you have immunity too — testing positive as somebody that’s been vaccinated and you have a very mild situation, that is not something that you would shut society down for,” he said.
“That’s not something you should shut schools down for,” DeSantis continued, triggering applause.
“What we’ve tried to do in Florida is not try to play off fears, not try to ratchet up hysteria,” he added, explaining they simply put the facts out and allow people to make decisions “that are best for them.”