Morning Joe caught spouting ignorance about Florida and the pandemic

It isn’t true, of course. DeSantis’s pandemic management has been more than adequate with great results, and it’s positively shining in comparison to, say, Gov. Andrew Cuomo. But facts and details have never been Scarborough’s strong suit.

“Florida remains a hot spot,” said the cable news host. “Vaccinations continue to go at an unbelievably slow rate.”

Scarborough’s co-anchor, Mika Brzezinski, said, “The vaccine process is painfully slow. I mean, there are people who are in categories who, you know, are definitely applying for it right now, like my mother, people over the age of 70 who cannot get it.”

She continued, adding in reference to the crowds of Florida residents who celebrated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Super Bowl victory this weekend, “Then, you see video of kids squashed together, screaming at each other, probably drinking. I mean, this is just a nightmare. That is a COVID nightmare.”

For the record, the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe were not similarly concerned last year when throngs of anti-police protesters crowded the streets in New York City and elsewhere. The Morning Joe hosts were likewise unperturbed when activists poured out in major cities earlier this year to celebrate President Biden’s electoral victory.

“We know a lot of people who are in their mid-to-late 70s, 80s, who have underlying conditions in Florida, [who] can’t get their vaccines either,” Scarborough continued. “Seriously? How hard has this been? I know that Ron DeSantis has been stumbling around over the past year or so and has some real problems, especially as it pertains to vaccines, but I don’t think anyone would have expected him to foul it up as badly as he has.”

What are they on about?

With 3.2% of its total population fully vaccinated, Florida’s distribution rate is above the national average, ahead of New York, North Carolina, Hawaii, Minnesota, Texas, and Wisconsin, to name just a few. Moreover, with 9.4% of its total population having received the first shot of the vaccine, Florida’s distribution rate is also well above average. It’s not even close to being the worst in the union.

Further, to Scarborough and Brzezinski’s point about at-risk seniors, among “the three states — Florida, Georgia, and Texas — that placed people ages 65 and older in the initial prioritization group (that is, before the federal government advised including them), two (Florida and Texas) are reporting vaccination rates by age, and Florida has the highest vaccination rate among older adults (29%) as of February 4th,” according to a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In fact, among the states reporting coronavirus vaccinations for the age group 65 and older, Florida comes in third place, just behind West Virginia and North Carolina, in terms of the share of older residents who have received at least the first dose of the vaccine.

While we’re at it, Florida is also 26th in terms of per capita COVID-19 deaths. Unlike New York and New Jersey, in which the per capita death rates far outpace Florida, the Sunshine State has been mostly open for business during the pandemic. If you’re looking for a governor who successfully balanced saving lives with keeping things open, DeSantis is your man.

Though Scarborough and others in the press are determined to portray DeSantis as the most bumbling and ineffectual of the governors dealing with the pandemic, the reality of the matter is that Florida’s chief executive is anything but. Like Scarborough’s belief in the importance and influence of his show, it’s all in his head.