A day after his state surgeon general was confirmed along party lines by the Florida Senate, Gov. Ron DeSantis Thursday announced a new statewide mask policy that he claims “bucks CDC policy.”
The news release and tweet proclaiming the new guidelines seemed to coincide with his barnstorming speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) convention: Florida had “defeated Fauci-ism,” he said — a jab at Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to President Joseph Biden.
“People want to live freely in Florida without corporate masking creating a two-tier society, overbearing isolation for their children, and their health care practitioners having the freedom to follow science, not outdated and politicized guidance,” DeSantis tweeted.
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And later Thursday, the Associated Press reported the Biden administration was expected to “significantly loosen federal mask-wearing guidelines to protect against COVID-19 transmission on Friday,” meaning “most Americans will no longer be advised to wear masks in indoor public settings.”
In his news release, the governor said Florida was “empowering health care practitioners to follow science, not Fauci’s status quo.”
The jabs at Fauci during his CPAC speech to stand up to the “Brandon administration” pointed to the mounting speculation that Florida’s governor has his eyes on a run for president in 2024.
The announcement is consistent with long-expressed views on masks that both the governor and the state’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, share. They’ve banned mask mandates in schools and DeSantis has said for weeks that cloth masks are not effective against the COVID-19 virus.
DeSantis has been building up to this announcement for weeks, criticizing corporations for requiring workers to wear masks when customers go maskless.
Just two weeks ago, while visiting Fort Walton Beach to tout the state’s visitor numbers, DeSantis announced a proposed workers’ bill of rights to release them from mask requirements: “Liberate your employees from forced masking requirements,” he said.
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In a 10-minute video posted on the conservative site Rumble, DeSantis said that the state offered liability protections to businesses so they wouldn’t be sued over COVID-19 infections. “We noticed that a lot of it referenced official guidance from different government or professional organizations,” he said.
He and Ladapo discussed how “a lot of that guidance isn’t the best guidance;” DeSantis said the Department of Health issued new guidelines to businesses recommending against corporations forcing employees to wear masks.
“There is just no evidence that that is beneficial and it is obviously very uncomfortable,” DeSantis said.
Added Ladapo: “So many of us are happy to see the end of employees having to walk around in masks in hot restaurants when customers are sitting comfortably. There has never been any evidence it’s beneficial.”
Multiple studies have shown that masks are effective against the spread of COVID-19. When used properly, they dramatically reduce the amount of respiratory droplets a person spreads and breathes in. That reduces the spread of COVID by an infected person.
The CDC continues to tout the effectiveness of masks, although it recently said some masks – the N95, for instance – are more effective than others.
DeSantis and Ladapo also announced new guidelines for physicians to use off-label products to treat people with COVID-19 as they see fit. Again, that goes against recommendations from national health organizations that state medical boards crack down on health care providers who treat their patients with unproven medicine or treatments that have been shown to not work against COVID-19.
“It’s really been a tragedy that my physician colleagues decided it’s more important to stick with what the CDC or Dr. Fauci recommend,” Ladapo said.
Now doctors who receive pushback from a hospital can file a complaint with the Agency for Health Care Administration that the hospital is “interfering with their ability and clinical judgment in terms of what’s best for their patients,” Ladapo said.
![Portraits of masked residents from the greater Jacksonville, Florida area photographed during the COVID-19 pandemic. [Bob Self/Florida Times-Union]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2021/12/23/NFTU/eeee75e4-c6db-46f4-9bba-c48ba9899cb6-01masks.jpg?width=660&height=660&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
The new guidelines also say that healthy children in daycare don’t need to quarantine, following an order by Ladapo in September suspending the ability of public schools to quarantine asymptomatic students exposed to COVID-19.
Children in daycare who test positive for COVID-19 can return after five days, with no test required, under the new guidelines. The new rules also say children in daycare should never be forced to wear a mask.
The new guidelines also update the isolation rule for public schools and Floridians in general to five days, saying the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines are vastly outdated.
Jeffrey Schweers is a capital bureau reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida. Contact Schweers at jschweers@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @jeffschweers.
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