DeSantis shouldn’t ignore image of despair
We’ll keep this short. We have already expended thousands of words — to no avail — pushing, nagging, imploring Gov. DeSantis to treat the coronavirus pandemic as the ruthless monster that it is.
However, we think this one, heartbreaking image is worth at least a thousand words more.
The image has gone viral, according to The Washington Post. Dr. Joseph Varon, swaddled in protective gear, embraces an
elderly man on Thanksgiving Day in the COVID intensive care
unit at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston.
The frail COVID patient is in despair: “I want to be with my wife,” he wails.
The scene is from a hospital in Texas, but it could have been snapped virtually anywhere the coronavirus is still raging, including Florida, which just confirmed 1 million cases of COVID, the third state in the country to reach that unfortunate milestone.
From the beginning, DeSantis mostly spurned medical experts’ guidance, never imposed a mask mandate, played fast and loose with data — to the point that he’s hired as a data analyst an Uberdriving sports blogger whose Internet musings include spreading, then having to delete, harebrained COVID conspiracies. The governor has protected possibly derelict nursing homes. Most recently, in an act of seeming power-hungry malevolence, DeSantis has handcuffed local leaders, preventing them from imposing their own tougher policies to stem the again-surging virus. This seems an attempt to take the debunked pre-vaccine “herd immunity” approach to the next level.
Obviously, DeSantis alone did not get us to this sorry state. Far too many people defiantly failed to take personal responsibility for their health and that of others, spurning face masks, refusing to social distance.
We have called the governor out for his lack of leadership, for his refusal to stand in solidarity with science. We’ve called his actions irresponsible. We are on the cusp of calling them evil. But we remember, and made note of, the governor’s one brief public display of having a heart. There was that one day he paused during a press briefing to get his emotions, triggered by a discussion of dying loved ones, in check. That’s the man who needs to take a close look at this photograph and listen to hear the inconsolable man’s plea.
The image speaks volumes — a thousand words — on behalf of Floridians to whom the governor has, so far, refused to listen.