POLITICUSUSA

Ron DeSantis has spent much of the last year congratulating himself on how he has handled COVID-19. The Florida governor has leaned in hard to the culture war aspect of the pandemic. 

Not only has he made a huge deal of fighting against mask mandates, he went as far as fundraising off shirts that slammed infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci. 

According to DeSantis, he has done all of this in an effort to keep businesses humming in his state. But are they? Economist Paul Krugman did a deep dive into Florida’s economy and found that the governor hasn’t done well at all. 

Krugman laid out his findings in a tweetstorm. He began, “DeSantis has been touting the FL economy — although how well will that economy hold up as potential visitors realize that the Sunshine state has become extremely dangerous and its hospital system is in overload crisis?”

The economist continued, “But leaving that aside, a good economy isn’t much comfort if you’re dead. FL currently losing ~58 people to Covid per day, compared with ~6 in NY. Say the excess death toll is ~40 a day. What’s that worth?”

Krugman closed his argument, “So if you put a dollar value on it, DeSantis’s anti-mask, anti-Vax policies are costing his state the equivalent of 13% of its GDP. Winning the pandemic!”

DeSantis looks like he could be the favorite for the Republican nomination in 2024. His current handling of COVID, though, has a significant chance of running those chances.