DeSantis created vaccine demand. Can he meet it?

If the COVID-19 pandemic forces budget cuts, said Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, “We will have less government.”

Actually, Florida needs more government — especially more competent government. We are getting the opposite with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Take your pick of anecdotes that reveal the dysfunction:

Broward County’s appointment website sputtering before going down until further notice;

Hillsborough County’s hotline crashing under the volume of 2,000 calls per minute;

People camped out in Lee County, where the website scheduled 5,000 appointments in three minutes and then died.

A smooth rollout would have been difficult under the best of circumstances. In Florida, however, it’s been almost the worst of circumstances.

When former Gov. Rick Scott left office in 2019, the Tampa Bay Times reported that Republicans had eliminated 3,700 jobs. Low pay has discouraged talented people from applying.

So Florida began its COVID-19 response with too little government. Many Floridians who never lost a job now understand the frustration of laid-off workers who must deal with the state’s lousy website for filing unemployment claims.

But Gov. DeSantis has made the rollout much more problematic by failing to plan and issuing another of his no-notice, head-snapping executive orders.

On Monday, during a testy exchange with a CNN reporter, DeSantis blamed problems on “high demand.” Well, yes. He created it.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that states first vaccinate health-care workers and long-term care residents. Next should come essential workers and people 75 and over.

Such an approach would have made sense in Florida. The state was to receive enough doses to vaccinate 225,000 people. That number would have offered a manageable test run while health departments ramped up.

Instead, DeSantis jumped right to the CDC’s third phase: anyone 65 and over.

With each vaccination requiring two doses, in Florida, that’s 9 million doses. DeSantis made this announcement two days before Christmas, after many health departments had given overworked staffers time off over the holidays.

DeSantis had known for months that a vaccine might arrive by the end of December. Yet he wasted that time. Florida has no statewide communications system for vaccine information. Would emergency managers start planning for hurricane season in July?

As a result, people are improvising. According to Axios, some counties are using the EventBrite website to schedule appointments. EventBrite’s usual specialties are concerts and happy hours.

“It’s the only option we have,” said a Brevard County official. But people 65 and over are less tech-savvy in general than younger people.

DeSantis never would admit it, but the Trump administration also is part of the problem.

Raphael Lee runs the health program at U.S. Digital Response, which connects technology specialists with local governments. State and local health agencies, Lee said, are “coordinating the fastest vaccine rollout in U.S. modern history in the U.S. and they’re doing it without leadership from the federal government.”

Indeed, Trump is focused not on saving lives as he leaves office but on lying about having won a second term. Trump continues to dispute — also without evidence — the national death toll of 354,000 and rising.

And if DeSantis won’t blame Trump, he won’t blame himself. On Monday, DeSantis suggested that underperforming hospitals might lose some doses or get fewer in the next round. He named no hospitals.

As with the wider COVID-19 response, DeSantis is failing to give Floridians what they need most: reliable information from a credible source. DeSantis is not that source, given his administration’s months-long record of delayed and/or inaccurate data.

Throughout the pandemic, DeSantis has attached himself to Trump. The governor’s response thus has been more about politics. Perhaps Trump’s departure will free DeSantis. Enough politics. Give us good government. In large doses.