There’s been no surer way to end up on the national media’s blacklist amid the coronavirus pandemic than to say the words “reopen” and “economy.”
Naturally, that’s where Govs. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Ron DeSantis, both Republicans, found themselves the second either of them began loosening up statewide restrictions on normal business operations in recent weeks. For that, the entire media began casting them as reckless science-doubters who were effectively inviting new outbreaks and mass deaths within their states.
But neither state has experienced an outbreak. In fact, both Florida and Georgia are doing well, with COVID death rates well below the national average of 25 per 100,000 people. In Georgia, it’s 13. In Florida, just 8.
So how are the media’s COVID-19 governor heroes doing? Daily press briefings by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, are run top to bottom live on cable news outlets, and his performances are cherished by the press. The New York Times last month called Cuomo’s delivery “articulate, consistent and often tinged with empathy.” The paper also likened the briefings to a “tender embrace.”
That soft hug, however, is currently accompanied by the shockingly high death rate of 139 per 100,000 people, a number that was boosted in part by Cuomo’s appalling decision to force nursing homes to accept any elderly person who had been infected with the virus. This directly exposed many high-risk people to the coronavirus and has probably resulted in many deaths.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is a Republican, but he gets a lot of love from the press because he’s always ready to attack President Trump. His state isn’t doing so hot, either, with a rate of 28 deaths per 100,000. That means Maryland has a death rate more than twice that of Georgia.
There are probably infinitely many reasons for the state-by-state discrepancies in outbreaks, all of which will have to be studied. But at least for now, the governors heralded by the media are not necessarily the ones people should be looking to for guidance.
