You can almost hear the wailing. If the media wants to keep up the COVID-19 panic porn, they will have to pick on a Democrat governor. Right now, Oregon Governor Kate Brown is seeing a significant surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in her state, just like Hawaii experienced concurrent with the red states in the Southeast. But if the media talks about Hawaii and Oregon, they have to point out that these states enforced some of the strictest restrictions and mask mandates, and cases surged anyway. That can’t happen.
The corporate media prefers to portray Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as incompetent and generally fails spectacularly. They consider him the most dangerous Republican in the mix for 2024 and will do anything to hamper his reelection chances in 2022. So as the Florida surge begins to decline, at least one outlet has taken to doing the media equivalent of “vaguebooking.” This story is like the post you see on Facebook where everyone knows whom a user is talking about, even if the user doesn’t mention a name.
NBC Miami published a story with the headline, “Mentor to Young Men Among 15 MDCPS Staff to Die of COVID in Ten Days.” For reference, the Miami-Dade County Public Schools have 33,179 total full-time staff, which means 0.045% of the staff was affected. I am not providing this statistic to minimize any death. The only person profiled in the report who passed away is a tragic loss for the school and community.
Abe Coleman taught for more than 30 years and was the site director for 5000 Role Models of Excellence. The school he taught and mentored at sits across the street from a public housing project. “In particular, he was a bridge builder for the students there. He connected them with opportunity, with resources, with infrastructures of opportunity that fed into and contributed to their development,” said Marcus Bright, who worked with Coleman in the mentoring program.
Someone like Coleman deserved a feature article of his own rather than inclusion in a vague hit piece on DeSantis for his COVID-19 policies. Outsize media attention has been paid to DeSantis prohibiting mask mandates and resisting other COVID-19 restrictions over the past 15 months. Alhough Florida’s overall results remain in the middle of the pack nationwide, even with a large population over 65, the media is just desperate to provide any reason to doubt DeSantis’s approach of focused protection, vaccine promotion, and early treatment.
Coleman is the only one of the 15 who allegedly died that the reader knows anything about. The number and timeframe were provided to NBC Miami by Sonia Diaz, a spokesperson for several unions in MDCPS. Diaz provided no other names. The school district did not confirm the number when contacted. The district is also implementing a mask mandate despite DeSantis’s ban.
School started on August 23 in the district. NBC Miami covered the story on September 2. No one who passed away contracted it from the classroom. Yet NBC can only say it was “unknown” how the 15 staff members contracted COVID-19. What we do know is that most people develop symptoms between days four and five after exposure. Death usually occurs between 21 and 28 days after symptoms appear. For these individuals, their employment at the school and working with children had nothing to do with their passing.
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There is no information about their age, vaccination status, or any preexisting condition they may have had. DeSantis has also made it incredibly easy for Floridians to access monoclonal antibodies if they are at high risk. There are 21 treatment clinics in the state, and DeSantis has done a month-long public relations push to build awareness. If these individuals were eligible, it is a tragedy they did not access the treatment.
None of this stops the Covidstan blue-check Twtitterati from sharing it and people who should know better from commenting on it:
Cc: @RonDeSantisFL sounds like your plan is working reeeeeeeally well.
— Patrick Lorimer, MD (@surgoncmd) September 4, 2021
Actually, it is. Between 3,000 and 4,000 high-risk patients are being treated daily in Florida’s 21 infusion centers. That does not include treatment provided in private practice and hospital settings. Hospitalization rates decreased 20% following the implementation of the program in mid-August. As of September 2, 69% of the eligible population received the full vaccine series in Florida and 87% of those over 65 have. Dr. Patrick Lorimer either doesn’t understand the clinical progression of COVID-19 or didn’t read the story. Don’t be a Patrick.
LISTEN to Governor DeSantis discuss early treatment in Florida.
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