‘People want to live freely in Florida’: DeSantis makes significant changes to state’s COVID-19 guidelines

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Governor Ron DeSantis and State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced changes to Florida’s COVID-19 guidance in a video titled "Buck the CDC" on Thursday afternoon.

"People want to live freely in Florida, without corporate masking creating a two-tier society and without overbearing isolation for children," said Governor Ron DeSantis. "We are empowering health care practitioners to follow science, not Fauci’s status quo."

DeSantis and Ladapo say the guidance pushes back against recommendations for masking, isolation and COVID treatments. It discourages companies from requiring employees to wear masks.

"There’s never been any evidence that this benefits employees. There’s never been any evidence that benefits patrons to businesses and we’re not recommending it here in Florida," Dr. Ladapo stated.

While doctors say the science shows otherwise.

"One of the things that really stuck out to me is the statement that the use of masks there was no scientific evidence that masks actually made a difference in suppressing COVID infections. And in fact, there are dozens of papers out there that say that the masks make a huge difference," Dr. Thomas Unnasch, Distinguished USF Health Professor said.

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The new guidance gives health care practitioners the flexibility to decide to treat patients with off-label prescriptions if they determine that it may help the patient and it is something the patient would like to try and provides informed consent to try.

The guidelines also reduce isolation for all Floridians including students and kids in daycare to five days. The CDC guidelines recommend another five days of mask-wearing.

"What this does is recognize reality. It’s so important for parents and students but this is also something being updated at large for the public," DeSantis said.

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Doctors say this kind of language can create more division during an already polarizing time.

"I thought it was kind of unfortunate that the language that was used was so highly politicized. I think in this polarized environment that we have, we should all really be trying to pull together, protect our health and the health of everybody around us," Unnasch commented.