Media Tries to Tag DeSantis With New COVID Story but There's a Big Problem

There’s a new story aimed at attacking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis zooming around liberal media and social media today.

“Four teachers died of COVID-19 within 24 hours in Broward County, Florida. Schools there are defying Gov. DeSantis’ ban on mask mandates,” headlines blared.

Here’s CNN promoting it, of course then hooking it up to DeSantis’ push to not mandate masks in schools but to allow parents to decide for their own children.

BREAKING: WFOR is reporting that 4 teachers from Broward county have died of covid in a single day.

Three were unvaccinated. We don’t know the status of the 4th. pic.twitter.com/uT4XW7irc5

— Brianna Keilar (@brikeilarcnn) August 13, 2021

Except there are some problems with this story.

Starting with the fact that school hasn’t started yet so these folks would have been on vacation when they caught it. So none of these people caught anything because of anything done by DeSantis. Yet despite that, you have liberals all over it blaming DeSantis.

More blood on DeSantis's hands. Also on the rightwing "who cares if others get vaccinated" death cult. https://t.co/rK7k9oouPS via @YahooNews

— Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) August 13, 2021

Just another “mistake” that seems to target DeSantis, right? Like the CDC getting the Florida case numbers wrong. Nope, no excuse for the media. They know when school starts yet they’re twisting this specifically to attack him. They can’t claim mistake over this one.

Another issue? This information is all stemming from the comments of one teacher’s union president who is against DeSantis’ ban and was spreading this story to multiple media outlets.

From Yahoo News:

Three teachers and a teaching assistant in Florida’s Broward County died from COVID-19 within a span of 24 hours, the Broward Teachers Union told NBC Miami on Thursday.

The union’s president, Anna Fusco, said at least three of the four were unvaccinated, per NBC Miami. All four were on summer break when they caught the virus and died just as the school year was about to begin, she added.

Fusco told CBS Miami that one was a high-school teacher, another taught in elementary school, and the teaching assistant and the remaining teacher were from the same school. “It’s extremely frightening,” she said. “I hear this every day. Whether in Broward or elsewhere. We’re the fifth-largest union in the country.”

She told NBC Miami: “It really hits because we’ve been in this conversation about masking up in schools, our own elected governor acting like masks are not necessary.”

Did anyone even bother to check the validity of the story? Did they really die within 24 hours? Was it from COVID or “with” COVID? Sorry, but at this point, with all the false information that has been propagated out there, I don’t just buy what a teacher’s union president says — I’d like to have a few facts to back it up.

It’s sad that anyone dies from the virus. But it’s also clear that deaths — and literally anything regarding the virus — are being fully politicized. And that none of these deaths had anything to do with DeSantis’ position on masks if the teachers weren’t even in the school. So, once again, media owes DeSantis an apology. Not that they’d ever give it to him.

This is an absurd framing. Broward county schools are not open until next week.

You could say this about any occupation. It has absolutely nothing to do with them being “teachers” or about what schools should do regarding masks, vaccines or anything else. https://t.co/SUtNNsB0Sn

— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) August 13, 2021