Premium

DeSantis Is Right: It’s All COVID Theater

AP Photo/John Raoux

It seems that these days, all Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has to do is sneeze the wrong way and the left-wing chattering class will devolve into wailing and gnashing of teeth. You probably already heard about the latest fiasco in which he told a group of high school students at an event that they did not have to wear face masks.

“You do not have to wear those masks. Please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything. We’ve gotta stop with this COVID theater. So, if you wanna wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous,” he told the students, some of whom promptly removed their masks.

The usual suspects chimed in with their typical fake outrage, lambasting the governor for daring to suggest what many already know: Masking is not an effective way to stop the spread of COVID-19 – especially for young Americans.

MSNBC media activist and professional race-baiter Joy Reid asked, “If Florida is so ‘free,’ why does DeSantis think he has the right to bully and give orders to other peoples’ kids?’

Reid’s colleague, Chris Hayes, also whined about the affair. “Incredible predictable how conservative ideology goes from ‘hey it should be my choice; dont tell me what to do!’ to ‘we are *abolutely* gonna tell you what to do once we have the power to do it,'” he tweeted.

Unfortunately for these individuals, there’s a problem with their argument. DeSantis is 100 percent correct.

Several studies have shown that masking does very little to slow the spread of the coronavirus. RedState’s Bonchie pointed out:

The game that has been played up to this point in regards to “studies” surrounding mask-wearing has been to cherry-pick data from the summer of 2020, conveniently only looking at a time period when the Southern U.S. was going through their wave. With New York and much of the North East that was slammed early on having already “recovered” by that point (they would eventually see another wave), that data made it seem like mask mandates were a deciding factor in stopping the spread of COVID-19. They never were, and a look at the totality of the pandemic clearly shows that waves presented at different times for different areas but that masks never prevented or slowed those waves. You didn’t even need an in-depth study to observe that. A simple comparison of the infection curves of different states always showed that masks weren’t a deciding factor.

Bonchie wrote another piece detailing another study showing masking is about as useful for stopping COVID as using an umbrella to protect yourself from a tsunami.

But even if you didn’t know about the multitude of studies casting doubt on masking, you could simply look at the behavior of high-profile Democratic leaders who have been caught not abiding by their own mask mandates. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, President Joe Biden, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot are just a few Democrats who have been caught – some repeatedly – not wearing masks when they were supposed to.

The prevalence of stories revealing Democrats’ hypocrisy is proof positive that they don’t even believe masking is an effective way to prevent the spread of the virus. If they truly believed masking provided a significant benefit, they wouldn’t be caught dead without their beloved face coverings.

DeSantis is right. The masks are nothing more than theater designed to make the populace feel better. It is the real-life equivalent of Linus’ security blanket. It assuages our fears and helps us go about our everyday lives. Indeed, even after America is fully into the post-COVID era, you can bet there will still be people trying to coerce people into covering their faces even when the mandates are lifted.

The governor did nothing wrong – except expose the big lie that the left has been selling the American public for over two years and counting. This is why the Joy Reids and Chris Hayeses of the world became so upset when he uttered those words. You better believe they will be part of the chorus that opposes the ending of mask mandates as more states – including those run by Democrats – drop these unnecessary rules. Unfortunately for them, the public has finally grown weary of these draconian measures and America is heading back to normalcy whether the left likes it or not.

Recommended

Trending on RedState Videos