Dems Demonized South Dakota and Florida on the Virus, but Those States Are Showing How It's Done

One of the things that has been counter to reality over the past year has been how Democrats and liberal media have praised the response of NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, while attacking President Donald Trump, Gov. Kristi Noem, and Governor Ron DeSantis.

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This wasn’t connected to reality.

Cuomo’s response was particularly horrific with his nursing home order, lying about the numbers, and the coverup.

President Donald Trump made unprecedented moves partnering with companies to speed the process to a vaccine and rolling out a vaccination plan which is why the U.S. is well ahead of places like Europe who were mired in all kinds of regulations and liberal government nonsense. That saved countless lives.

Despite having an open economy and open schools, neither Florida nor South Dakota has suffered the disaster that Democrats and the media predicted.

From RedState:

Even CNN and some Democrats have had to concede that DeSantis’ effort was pretty good, that the death rate is no greater than the national average, despite having a concentrated, older population, and that they’ve done better than some who instituted more restrictions, as Axios observes. Meanwhile Florida’s unemployment rate is 5.1%, compared to 9.3% in California, 8.7% in New York, and 6.9% in Texas. Not to mention that children have been back in classrooms since this past fall.

South Dakota has never been shut down, with Noem saying she believed in personal responsibility and treating people like adults (how refreshing).

Not only haven’t South Dakota and Florida become the disasters that Democrats predicted, they’re actually success stories, in part, because of the focus on protecting seniors, the most vulnerable population.

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Unlike New York and some other Democratic states who ordered nursing homes to take virus patients, DeSantis forbad anyone with the virus from being sent into long-term care facilities. He focused on protecting that population early. On March 11, Florida was forbidding anyone with the symptoms of a respiratory infection from visiting nursing homes. That prohibition also included anyone who may have had close contact with anyone who tested positive for the virus, as well as anyone who recently took a cruise or has been in places deemed to have a “community spread” of the virus.

Given that nursing homes were such a huge percentage of the deaths across the country, that decision, early on, likely made a huge difference in preventing more deaths.

Now, both South Dakota and Florida have concentrated on getting seniors vaccinated and it’s paying off in their vaccination numbers, as Phil Kerpen points out.

Here’s the percent of 65+ population vaccinated (at least one dose) by state of residence, including all federal and state programs, ranked. South Dakota tops the list as of March 20.

Here are the updated numbers that reveal they not only have the highest number of seniors vaccinated with at least one dose at 81.9 but also the highest number of seniors who have completed the process, as well as one of the highest percentages in the country of all ages getting at least one dose at 30%.

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When you look at it by the percentage of doses administered that were to seniors. Florida, with its 4.5M seniors, is tops here, as of March 20. Likely in part because of its higher percentage of seniors as well.

So how was New York doing in all this, with the hero of the Democratic Party at the helm?

In terms of the percent of 65+ population vaccinated (at least one dose), New York was 48th.

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