Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has vowed to keep the Sunshine State’s economy open for business as fears of the newest coronavirus strain, the Omicron variant, grips the globe this holiday season.
“Keeping Florida open has been so important for keeping our economy strong, and protecting jobs in the hospitality sector has been a key part of this,” DeSantis tweeted last week.
This week, the Biden administration announced a travel ban on non-citizens from South Africa, as well as seven other provinces, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Malawi. Despite these international restrictions, DeSantis is set on making sure that the Florida economy remains open, just like during the initial wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Just think of all the people whose livelihood depends on having an open economy,” he said. “In a state like Florida, if we had done a California lockdown, we have a service based economy, between our lodging, our parks, our restaurants; and so we were able to keep those afloat.”
Gov. DeSantis has also protected Floridians’ right to medical freedom, recently signing legislation to ban employers from enforcing tyrannical vaccine mandates.
“We recognize, unlike what you see going on with some of the federal proposed mandates, other states, is we’re actually doing a science based approach,” he stated this month. “We recognize people that have natural immunity. You have natural immunity—whatever a private employer wants to do, you’re automatically exempt because of natural immunity.”
As many more progressive states and lawmakers are considering more lockdowns and medical restrictions to protect from the newest variant, DeSantis is applying the same logic for this variant as he did when the initial coronavirus pandemic kicked off in early 2020.
His plan to keep Florida open and operating will undoubtedly be a huge hit with Floridians who now have more registered voting Republicans in the state than Democrats. Amidst the nationwide push from the Biden administration to kill jobs with vaccine mandates and coronavirus restrictions, Florida has remained a bastion of individual liberty, prompting many Americans from blue states to relocate there and put down roots.
