NARRATOR: Now from CBS 4 News,
this is Facing South
Florida with Jim DeFede.
Good morning and welcome
to Facing South Florida.
We are in uncharted waters.
The President of the United
States has tested positive
for the coronavirus.
We truly hope he and the first
lady will recover quickly.
Nevertheless it is
impossible to hear this news
and not think about
the statements he
has made for months.
Mocking those who wear masks,
claiming the virus
was a democratic hoax,
declaring we had turned
the corner on the virus
and it was all behind us.
But it has been repeated
attacks on science
that has been
incredibly detrimental.
And we have seen others
following his lead,
including right here in Florida.
On Friday, September 25th,
late in the afternoon,
Governor Ron DeSantis announced
that he was
initiating phase three
and ordering all businesses
across the state to reopen.
But more importantly,
he has now blocked
city and county leaders
from enforcing mask mandates
and social distancing.
And local leaders
have no discretion
when it comes to
restaurants and bars.
It's as if the virus is gone.
Dr. Deborah Birx said
she was deeply disturbed
by what the governor was doing.
But DeSantis ignored Dr.
Birx, as well as Dr. Fauci,
the CDC, and the country's
leading health experts.
Instead he went out and
found his own experts
and held a public
round table discussion
with three scientists he
knew would support his plan.
It was pure theater.
Dr. Levitt, do you agree
with that lockdowns
at this point should
be off the table?
Yeah.
I also agree with the fact that
a death is a terrible thing.
It's not as if a COVID death
is especially terrible.
Let that sink in for a second.
That was Dr. Michael Levitt,
who is not an epidemiologist,
but a professor of
biology at Stanford
and winner of the 2013
Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Here's more of
what he had to say.
I think protecting the
elderly is something
which is easier said than done
because if a person
is 90 years old,
then even under the
best of circumstances
there's a fairly
high chance of dying.
I mean, I'm 73 and I know that
I have about 1/2 a percent
chance of dying every month.
So it adds up.
But of course it doesn't in
any way affect my behavior.
In fact it makes me want
to live more dangerously.
If I bought a motorcycle now,
the incremental effect
risk would be very small.
So there are some good
things about getting old.
You can do risky things
'cause you have less to lose.
The governor's experts
also undermined the notion
of wearing masks.
Here's Dr. Jay Bhattacharya,
a medical professor at Stanford
with a degree in economics.
I don't think that
mandates to wear masks,
I mean, the evidence
doesn't suggest
that they're
particularly effective
at slowing the spread
of the disease.
And what I have seen also is
that these kinds of mandates
cause a lot of social strife.
People in conflict
with one another.
So in other words, we shouldn't
try to protect each other
because a few crazy people
who don't wanna wear masks
will yell and cause a scene
inside a Walmart or a Starbucks.
And they said we
should open the schools
because young people, well
they just don't get sick.
But children and young adults,
they should be able to live
life normally, more or less.
They should wash their hands
and those kinds of things,
but there's no public health
reasons to close schools.
Tell that to teachers and staff.
Dr. Martin Kulldorff
also said college kids
don't need testing, and
if they have been tested
and are positive, they
shouldn't be punished
for going to parties.
I think it's terrible.
I think that the young
people should live close
to normal lives and as
long as they don't invite
their grandmother to
those student parties,
I think that's fine.
But keep grandma away.
So these were the experts
the governor based
the state's new policies on.
Even Dr. Levitt
admitted their views
were not in the mainstream.
Actually I'm amazed
at finding two people
that actually agree with me,
this hardly ever happens.
When Dr. Levitt said
that a COVID death
isn't especially terrible, I
couldn't help but think back
to one of the Jackson ICU nurses
we featured a few weeks ago
who described what it was like
seeing someone die from COVID.
There's nothing you
can give for pain,
there's nothing you
can do for oxygen,
there's nothing you can
do but just watch them
just dwindle away.
It's the most horrific memory
I'll carry with me forever.
After the governor's decision
I spoke to the Miami
Beach Mayor Dan Gelber
and I should note this
conversation took place
before the president
tested positive for COVID.
I think unfortunately
Governor DeSantis
made a political decision.
It shouldn't be lost on
anyone that the election
is in a month and that
people are starting to vote
really as early as this weekend.
So you know, I think
he wanted everything
like President Trump
wants it to be,
happy and we're out
of it kinda thing,
even though we're not.
So I think it was a very
bad idea for him to do that.
And I especially think it was
bad because the mask mandate,
I think, has been one of the
things that all of our experts
say has been the difference.
We've gotten the virus low.
And the one thing
about the mask, Jim,
which I think people
really think about,
is you don't have to reduce
capacity to wear a mask,
you don't have to have
a curfew to wear a mask,
mask is one of the
only countermeasures
that doesn't impact the economy.
You can do it and
do everything else.
So why would he
send out a message
that you don't need to worry
about wearing the mask anymore?
I just wanna be clear
because are you saying
that the governor of
Florida, Ron DeSantis,
is willing to put lives at risk
in order for political
gain for either himself
or more specifically or
the President Donald Trump?
There's no question what
President Trump has done
and what the governor's done
have made political decisions
and not healthcare decisions.
First of all, certainly
with the president
you can't argue that point
because he's literally
told some of his advisors
and scientists and doctors
to stand down and be quiet
and change their behavior.
I think what you saw
Governor DeSantis do,
which was pretty bad, was
have a round table meeting
of quote experts where
he cherry-picked people
who had an opinion that
he wanted to get out there
rather than do what we all
have been doing down here,
which is find the
best experts we can
and try to figure out what
the heartland of opinion is.
He literally sent out
messaging to the state
that you don't have to
worry about mask usage,
it's really not helpful.
So you think that
entire round table
in which he brought
in these three experts
who by their own admission
seemed to be outliers,
I mean they even talked about
how the fact that it's rare
for anyone to agree with them.
And one of the
scientists said that, oh,
I never get to talk to
anybody who agrees with me
because everyone is opposed
to what I generally say.
So you think he
put that together
as a way of covering himself
because he had already
made a decision to reopen
and was using this as
justification to go forward
with his decision,
not actually trying to
hear from the experts?
Of course that was
what he was doing.
I mean, you can go online
and find an opinion
for everything.
You want an opinion that, say,
you don't have to wear a mask,
there are plenty of people
who will say that.
You want an opinion
that high school kids
are never gonna
spread the disease?
Somebody has said that.
There's just enormous
amounts of opinions out there
but the key is to
find the opinions
that are the heartland and
the conventional opinions
because those are
the ones you rely on.
And he picked three people
who are clearly outliers,
held a round table and
said to the state, see?
When I'm telling you you
don't have to wear a mask,
I've got a guy saying so.
But that doesn't make any sense.
That's like if you have
cancer and you go to a doctor
and you don't like what
the doctor tells you
to go find some other doctor
who might tell you
something different
so you don't have
to worry about it.
We still have this virus
and the physicians
we are relying on,
we're not cherry-picking
our physicians.
We're taking the
infectious disease person
from the local hospital,
the infection disease people
from the local university,
the infection disease
people from the state
that has an entire unit out
in the University of Florida
in the Emerging
Pathogen Institute.
We're relying on
experts, and the CDC--
By the way, it's not
like they're perfect,
but you can't go
looking for somebody
to simply verify
what you'd like to do
because then you become the
doctor and not the doctor
and that doesn't make
any sense at all.
And I think he did it,
obviously he did it.
Nobody is saying
don't wear masks
other than that fella
he has telling us to.
I mean, it was an absurd
and really very destructive,
I think, because we don't
have a vaccine right now.
We don't have a vaccine
so the only thing we have
instead of a vaccine
is our good common
sense and communication.
And when he sends out
information that's wrong,
or that's an outlier and
people who aren't physicians,
which is almost
everybody, rely on it,
he's really hurting everybody
because there are people
who aren't gonna wear a mask now
because the governor says
you don't have to wear a mask
and there certainly are
plenty who haven't worn masks
because the president has
scoffed at that whole process.
The timing is interesting.
Not just the fact that
this comes just a month
before the election, five
weeks before the election,
but also if you follow
the general principle
of what happens when
people become infected
and the lag time before
you start seeing increase
in hospitalizations and
then increase in deaths,
talk about that a little bit
because there's some
gamesmanship being played
with the timing here as well.
Yeah, I mean,
look, first of all,
getting the announcement
on a Friday at 4:00
without any prior notice
and having it take effect
immediately was sort
of surprising enough.
But we have plenty of folks
we have been talking to
regularly who do
exactly what you said.
Biostatisticians,
infectious disease experts,
and I asked a couple of
them what they thought
this most recent order,
if it did create a surge,
when it would impact us.
And they believed it would be
sometime in early November,
which would make it just about
right after the election.
So you know, listen, I
think this has been--
Look, I can't stand the way
this disease has been managed
nationally and initially
I tried to be supportive
of the governor, but the
failure to put together
a contact tracing program
that really does the job
it's supposed to do has
allowed the disease to spread
and messaging to people
that it's just all fine,
don't worry about
it, it is what it is,
as President Trump
has said, is horrible.
Look, all of the mayors, and
I've talked to all of them,
democrats and republicans, none
of us care about our party.
I talk to them all day long
about issues, about openings,
about how to address stuff
and every one of them
has the same issue.
We're trying to navigate
our economy and lives.
And we're trying to figure
out an impossible task
of what we should do to
not destroy the economy
but also to not have this
level of death that--
I mean, all of it
is unfathomable.
We have 29, 39 deaths in a day,
commonly now, in our county,
and that's actually
a good day sometimes.
Imagine that!
I can't think of a time when
30 people dying in a day
was something we just said,
well, it is what it is.
And I think we're normalizing
it and I think the messaging
from the governor and the
president is exacerbating it
because people are, you know,
some people fight about this.
I get profane emails every
day from people telling me,
why are you telling
me to wear a mask?
And I don't know what to do
other than keep
urging them to do it.
But I know they're not going to
because it's become
a political issue.
The Mayor of Miami-Dade
County, who's a republican,
and the governor
who's a republican
have been trying
to work in lockstep
with each other,
and yet the governor
just completely
dismissed Carlos Gimenez.
What does that tell you as well?
I don't think he wanted to
hear what he had to say.
I mean, frankly,
the local mayors
have been very like-minded.
Some of us will have
slight disagreements
about opening and things
like that, but you know,
nobody is trying to kill people
and nobody doesn't
care about the economy.
All of us are almost
have the same struggles.
Our commissioners,
too, by the way.
'Cause they're obviously for--
And the managers, all government
is trying to navigate this.
I don't think the governor
wanted to hear from anyone.
We'll be right back with