Gov. Ronnie-come-lately jumps the gun on virus progress

Gov. Ron DeSantis responded way late to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now he’s taking a premature victory lap.

Some parts of Florida, the governor said this week, are on “the other side” of the crisis. Speaking last week with Fox News propagandist Sean Hannity, DeSantis made an unsubstantiated claim to brag that Florida flattened the curve without “draconian” restrictions.

According to DeSantis, “They said that this week, one of the newspapers in Florida said we would have 464,000 people hospitalized. The actual number is 2,200.”

Actually, the Florida Department of Health website on Tuesday counted roughly 5,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations in Florida. There also is no record of any newspaper in Florida predicting 464,000 hospital cases.

As always, DeSantis is aligning his actions with what helps President Trump, whose endorsement made DeSantis governor and for whom DeSantis wants to deliver the state’s 29 Electoral College votes in November. Trump and the governor met Tuesday in Washington.

Trump’s chances depend on him rewriting history from January and February when he ignored verbal and written briefings that the virus could be catastrophic. DeSantis is obliging the president by saying that the “media downplayed” the threat.

At the same time, Trump wants to preside over recovery from the economic crash his inaction helped to cause. So DeSantis must present Florida as having avoided a worst-case scenario based on the state doing nothing and now being “on the other side.”

We all want the state to get there. But are we? Not yet. Florida must test many more people to get a true picture of the virus here.

It hasn’t happened, in part because of DeSantis’ allegiance to Trump. Maryland’s governor recently secured 900,000 test kits — for a state with one-third fewer people than Florida — from South Korea. Meanwhile, DeSantis secured 1 million doses of the anti-malaria drug that Trump touted until the Food and Drug Administration warned about “life-threatening” heart problems when given to COVID-19 patients.

If Florida got through this first surge without a crisis at any hospital, more credit goes to the local governments that acted long before DeSantis.

Though the governor closed bars and limited restaurant seating in March, he didn’t issue a statewide stay-at-home order until April 1. He was one of the last governors to do so.

You also can see Trump politics in DeSantis’ itinerary and assessment of the state. He was in Orlando Sunday to praise “Central Florida.” He has touted progress in Tampa and Jacksonville.

Based on the New York Times’ metro tracking feature, however, new cases last week in Broward, Palm Beach and MiamiDade counties were down 22.3 percent. In Jacksonville, the drop was 13.1 percent. Tampa and Orlando went down by 9.8 percent and 6.7 percent.

Why no love for South Florida? It’s mostly Democratic. The election will turn on the Interstate 4 corridor from Tampa to Daytona Beach. If people are more optimistic, they could be more likely to vote for Trump.

As for Florida and the virus, a more accurate description at this point is that the state might be emerging from the first phase of the pandemic. Things only will get tougher.

How, for example, does DeSantis plan to reopen schools? If more businesses reopen, parents who have been supervising at-home learning won’t be able to do so. Continued closures especially will hurt students from less-affluent families.

How will DeSantis prepare the state for a second wave of infections? How will he assure a continued supply of protective equipment for health workers and first responders? Did he ask Trump why the federal government last week intercepted 1 million face masks that Miami-Dade

County had ordered?

Most importantly, how will DeSantis create a system of widespread, quick-results testing? Trump on Monday abdicated again, dumping that responsibility on the states.

Absent a vaccine, reliable testing is essential to public confidence, which is essential to reopening Florida. People won’t shop, eat out or send kids to school if they don’t feel safe.

Trump has lost much presidential credibility on the virus by making his briefings personal and partisan. DeSantis risks doing the same by prioritizing Trump’s reelection over Florida’s welfare. The people of Florida will decide when — and if — the governor deserves a victory lap.