Florida has a new surgeon general, and minds are being lost in response. Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Dr. Joseph Ladapo, a UCLA professor and Harvard Medical graduate to serve in the role. But what has the media and the left at large absolutely freaking out is how Ladapo wants to handle things like mask and vaccine mandates.

Ladapo also had the temerity to suggest that people should try to be…healthy. Yes, I know, it’s truly scandalous stuff.

“The state should be promoting good health, & vaccination isn’t only path. It’s treated almost like a religion… We support measures for good health. That’s vaccination, losing weight, exercising more, eating more fruits and veggies. We support it all.” https://t.co/MD7KMvBgtD

— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) September 21, 2021

One of the most ridiculous aspects of the federal government’s response to COVID-19 is the obfuscation of what causes the most people to get sick and die when they contract the virus. Namely, being obese or having other comorbidities that result from an unhealthy lifestyle. Yet, if someone dares to say that one way to fight COVID is for people to take care of themselves, that’s seen as an assault on the sacred vaccine, and we can’t have that.

Further, Ladapo’s view on not forcing masks follows the science. Unfortunately for him, that view runs up against orthodoxy that has made masking a religious rite. It doesn’t matter how many data points show mask mandates don’t work. If you don’t support masking up everyone, including little kids, you must want people to die even though masks almost certainly don’t prevent people from dying. Common sense and facts need not apply to any of these discussions.

Meanwhile, the media have decided that a bunch of know-nothing journalism majors have more knowledge of COVID than a tenured professor who got his medical degree from Harvard.

Writing for the Daily Beast, @kanaruhalter — a journalist with a bachelor’s degree in psychology from UCLA — asserts that a UCLA medical school professor is unqualified to speak about COVID.

…Sure Jan 😀 pic.twitter.com/n7dZjHPmfu

— Christina Pushaw (@ChristinaPushaw) September 21, 2021

Notice the continued obsession with going after anyone who dares to push anything but the vaccines. Treatments, healthy living, and strategies to avoid contraction? You can’t even mention those things without drawing the ire of lefty journalists everywhere.

In the end, that kind of short-sightedness is dangerous. The surgeon general of a state exists to promote health across the spectrum, not just baseless COVID hysteria and dogma. Lockdowns have helped cause a spike in childhood obesity that is going to cause far more damage to children than COVID will. Adults have also seen obesity rates rise along with other diseases because of a lack of preventative and elective treatment. A strategy that pushes vaccines but also healthy living and effective treatments is far preferable to the ineffective “vaccine-only” messaging from the federal government and the media.

In short, it is not bad to tell people to get healthy. The top way we could reduce COVID deaths aside from vaccines is to reduce obesity. That’s just a fact, and any government official not willing to say that is not qualified to hold the position they hold.