Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sunday touted his state’s response to the pandemic, including bans on mandates — and said the state’s economy has responded well as a result.
In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” DeSantis declared “what we did in Florida is we didn’t leave it to chance.”
“We passed substantive protections in a special session for Floridians so that they are able to have generous ability to opt out of these types of mandates,” he said. “We feel like we’ve done what we needed to do to protect our employees.”
“At the end of the day, Floridians know we will not let anybody lock them down, we will not let anyone take their jobs, we will not let anyone ruin their businesses, and we will not let anyone close their schools.” he declared. “So people are going to be able to live life, they’re going to be able to make their own decisions.”
According to DeSantis, the state’s economy is doing well because there are few restrictions.
“Since COVID, people know in Florida their freedoms are going to be respected,” he said. “People know they can invest here and not have their businesses shut down. People know they’re going to be able to get jobs here and not be forced out based on mandates.”
“I think the fact that we’ve really stood for freedom in addition to having good tax and spend policies has really caused people to want to come work in Florida,” he continued. “And we’re producing more jobs per capita than other states, but we have hundreds of thousands of job openings because the economy is performing well.”
DeSantis also praised his state’s emphasis on early treatment of COVID infection.
“We do put a lot of emphasis, unlike most states and certainly unlike the Biden administration, on early treatment when people do get infected,” he said.
“And it’s not just unvaccinated like they like to say. Our monoclonal antibody clinics that we set up across the state, the majority of people that go to those are fully vaccinated, high risk people. So since we’ve rolled out the clinics, we’ve had one of the lowest hospitalization rates in the country. So we’re going to continue focusing on early treatment, and we’re going to continue protecting people’s individual choices and freedoms.”
