Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said that locking down the state is not an option in combating COVID as leaders around the world struggle to formulate policies regarding another coronavirus variant, this one named Omicron.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” DeSantis said at a press conference in Orlando, according to First Coast News.
Although DeSantis has frequently been fodder for partisan media attacks, Florida currently has one of the lowest COVID rates in the country.
“The [previous] lockdowns didn’t stop COVID,” he said. “In Florida, we will not let them lock you down, we will not let them take your jobs, we will not let them harm your businesses, we will not let them close your schools.”
President Joe Biden warned about the need for new measures to combat COVID if US citizens don’t wear masks and get vaccinated.
“He said he saw no need for a new lockdown ‘for now … if people are vaccinated and wear their masks,’” said the BBC of the president’s remarks at the White House.
Are lock downs off the table?
Biden: “Yes, for now.”
— Sam Stein (@samstein) November 29, 2021
Governments around the world have begun to take stringent measures against their own citizenry as they grapple with the newest COVID threat, even as experts seem to think that the latest variant is milder than previous versions of the virus.
“Their symptoms were so different and so mild from those I had treated before,” said Dr. Angelique Coetzee about her patients who presented with COVID-like symptoms according to the UK’s Telegraph.
Coetzee is a South African who first alerted authorities to the new strain and also chairs the South African Medical Association.
Still, prior to the discovery of the new virus variant, protests and riots were breaking out in Europe as governments dealt with yet another spike in COVID infections by locking down some countries as they enter the Christmas season.
CNN reported that riots broke out in the Netherlands and 1,400 police were deployed against “heated “ protests in Austria.
“Several thousand people protested in Prague against anti-coronavirus restrictions on Sunday as many Czech hospitals halted non-urgent procedures in the face of one of the world’s fastest rates of new infections,” said Reuters.
“I am here to fight for freedom. I am here because I don’t agree with what is happening today,” Jiri Hulec told Reuters.
