■ Gov. Ron DeSantis’ performance under the microscope.

Eyes on DeSantis as he leads Florida’s response to virus pandemic

Beaches. Businesses. Tourism. Hospital supplies. Schools and universities.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is navigating Florida through a worldwide pandemic, making monumental, life-changing decisions that will leave an imprint for months, if not years, throughout the state.

The question, for some, is whether DeSantis acted early enough and broadly enough in response to the rapidly evolving coronavirus public health threat.

Early questions

The situation now is dramatically different than when DeSantis responded to a reporter’s question about coronavirus at a Jan. 27 event at a Boca Raton school. “It’s something that we obviously view as a significant public health threat.” This week, he said at a news conference, “We’re not going to panic.”

At a Friday briefing, President Donald Trump said, “The governor’s doing an excellent job, Governor DeSantis, in Florida. We have some pretty hot spots in Florida too.”

But early on in what’s become the coronavirus crisis, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Broward/Miami-Dade County Democrat, raised concerns about DeSantis’ actions.

On March 2, Wasserman Schultz told reporters that she had concerns. “It’s really disturbing when the first reaction of a leader of a state, or our country, which is the case with DeSantis or [President Donald] Trump, is to keep things quiet and secret, and information on lockdown,” she said.

On Wednesday evening, she said on Twitter that “Trump softpeddled #coronavirus threats too long. @RonDeSantisFL did too. He must say often, vocally: FLA has community spread, people are infected easier. In a crisis some truths, no matter how bad,

must be clearly stated & repeated. Lives are at stake.”

Wasserman Schultz isn’t alone in questioning the Republican governor. Jennifer Rubin, a conservative opinion writer at the Washington Post, wondered Thursday on Twitter why, “when so many govs are doing exemplary work what is the excuse for govs in Texas and Fla? Their constituents are being put at risk, but all of us are as well.”

Beach access

Even two of the hosts at Fox & Friends, a vital source of information for conservatives and Trump’s favorite TV show, expressed skepticism.

DeSantis appeared on the show Thursday morning to diffuse criticism of pictures showing crowds on Clearwater Beach.

“The message, I think, for spring breakers is that the party’s over,” he said.

DeSantis said some of the images were from Saturday, when the maximum crowd size from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 250, before it was dropped to 50 on Sunday and 10 on Monday.

Co-host Ainsley Earhardt was satisfied with what she heard. “Governor, I’m so glad you came on to explain that ‘cause I was going to ask what do you say to the critics who say this should have been done a lot sooner. But Saturday was a totally different story than it is here Thursday.”

The 13 Democratic members of Congress weren’t satisfied. Hours later, they issued a joint statement that “it is essential that Florida’s Governor use his power to immediately close access to all public beaches in the State of Florida.” Ending beach access “is an absolute necessity if we want to successfully slow the spread of the virus.”

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, the former Republican governor, has been outspoken in calling for strong measures to combat the virus, especially when it comes to closing the state’s beaches.

“Get off the beach,” Scott told CNN Thursday morning, echoing former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s call in 2012 to “Get off the damn beach” in advance of Hurricane Sandy.

But Scott has been careful not to directly criticize his successor, despite — or perhaps because of — the previous reports of bad blood between the two during the transition and afterward.

“This isn’t about finger-pointing or who is doing good or bad,” Scott spokesman Chris Hartline said Thursday. “It’s about getting all the information out to the public so they can make the best decisions to keep their families safe from coronavirus.”

Grading the governor

Broward Mayor Dale Holness, who was one of the county’s most prominent early supporters of DeSantis’ 2018 election opponent, said he didn’t want to give DeSantis a specific grade, but said the governor has been “very accessible” and “very responsive.”

“It’s a tough task to deal with this unprecedented virus tragedy that we’re in the midst of,” Holness said, adding he had “absolutely no complaint” about DeSantis’ performance.

“When you’ve been in a situation you’ve never been in before, it’s hard to say how fast and how broad,” Holness said. “We can always second-guess what we did and didn’t do or what we should or should not. At this point we’re on track with what should be done.”

And state Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, praised the governor’s staff, who she said was overwhelmed like everyone else but was still helpful and responsive.

Broward County Commissioner

Michael Udine, a former mayor of Parkland, said he’d like “stricter and quicker” actions. “We should err on the side of being as strict as possible. Anything we do now can help us get to the other side quicker.”

State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, agreed. He said Florida can’t continue with “halfmeasures” if the state going to flatten the curve of new cases.

In the non-political world, José Szapocznik, chairman of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Miami, said his biggest concerns have been “how slow the response has been and continues to be” at the federal government level.

“But I think at the state level, Governor DeSantis has done a reasonably good job,” Szapocznik said. “I’ve been encouraged by the state’s response. … Compared to other governors, he’s been very responsive.”

He said the governor’s decision to recruit public health faculty and students around the state to do contact tracing, which would help in preventing the further spread of the virus, was a good move.

Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, said he didn’t think DeSantis is constrained by Trump’s handling of the situation. “I don’t think he’ll criticize the president, but I do think in some cases he may go beyond what President Trump is either doing or has suggested.”

Policy

In terms of policy, Eskamani said, “I definitely want to see a lot more.” She called the restaurant limitations, “‘staggering’ [tables] is a ridiculous idea, with some businesses having to do this and some having to do that. It’s led to a lot of confusion in my district.”

State Sen. Gary Farmer, a Broward Democrat, wants Medicaid eligibility requirements waived, unemployment assistance rules eased, small business grants, and a reserve fund for local governments.

Farmer said by email that the “state’s response to this crisis has been somewhat slow and imperfect, but I attribute most of those missteps to President Trump’s handling of the crisis from Washington. … It is my hope that from here on out Governor DeSantis will continue to be proactive and listen to the input of others as we craft solutions to help our fellow Floridians.”