Row erupts as Florida governor refuses to impose masks

The US state now has the highest admissions rate of any US state.

Ron DeSantis has signed an executive order banning school districts from requiring students to wear facemasks when classes resume next month. Picture: AFP

Florida is in the grip of surging coronavirus cases and hospital admissions amid a row over the governor’s refusal to make mask-wearing compulsory.

The state now has the highest admissions rate of any US state. In the past week it recorded an average of 1560 hospital admissions a day. On Saturday federal health data showed a record daily case count of 21,683.

Ron DeSantis, 42, the Republican governor who is considered an early frontrunner in the race for the party’s presidential nomination in 2024, has refused to impose new mask rules.

Last week Mr DeSantis signed an executive order banning school districts from requiring students to wear facemasks when classes resume next month.

“I want to see my kids smiling. I want them having fun,” he said, adding that his order would improve students’ experience and make it easier for them to focus on their lessons.

Francis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health, told CNN: “This seems like something local officials ought to be able to decide based on their community’s circumstance”.

Yvonne Johnson, chief medical officer at the Baptist South Miami Hospital, told CBS the number of patients in her Covid-19 ward had quadrupled in the past three weeks.

“Eighty to 85 per cent of people who are hospitalised are unvaccinated. And 100 per cent in my (intensive care unit) are unvaccinated. All those people are suffering unnecessarily,” she said.

Mr DeSantis’s approach stands in stark contrast to other parts of the country. Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington DC, has ordered a return to wearing masks indoors, despite vaccination rates in the capital being among the highest in the country.

President Joe Biden ordered last week that all federal employees must attest that they have had a vaccine, or face significant limits on how they can work. On Tuesday AEST Bill de Blasio, the Democrat mayor of New York, ordered all new city employees be fully vaccinated. Mr de Blasio encouraged vaccinated people to wear masks indoors but stopped short of making it compulsory.

The White House said on Tuesday AEST that 70 per cent of American adults had received at least one dose of vaccine, a month later than Mr Biden’s target date.

Republican senator Lindsey Graham, 66, revealed that he has tested positive for Covid-19 despite being vaccinated, has flu-like symptoms and will be self-quarantining for 10 days.

“I am very glad I was vaccinated because without vaccination I am certain I would not feel as well as I do now. My symptoms would be far worse,” he tweeted.

THE TIMES