KAROL MARKOWICZ: Florida puts New York to shame in rational pandemic policies.

Stepping off the plane, we noticed something odd: Everyone was, in fact, masked. And keeping their distance. There was hand sanitizer everywhere. The COVID “Mad Max” world was nowhere to be found. Yes, everything was open, but precautions-wise, southern Florida looked a lot like New York.

The main difference: Masks aren’t worn in no-risk situations. In Gotham, it’s very common to see people masked even when all alone on empty streets. Small children wear masks outside. In Florida, we saw maskless children playing together outside. It looked like the Before Times.

Which is a good thing: We act like it’s no big deal to wear masks even where risk is nonexistent. But, of course, it does matter. In Florida, we saw the smiling faces of strangers for the first time in nine months. It’s hard to overstate how much that mattered to our well-being and the feeling of normality. There’s also the element of pandemic fatigue: Wearing a mask all the time, even when unnecessary, will at some point discourage use when it actually matters.

It’s a lie, though, that Floridians aren’t taking the novel coronavirus seriously. What they have done is discard the policies that don’t work, while retaining the ones that do.

Is Ron DeSantis mad? Has he abandoned all hope of winning an Emmy Award?!