DeSantis Won’t Speak To South Florida Mayors: Report

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FL — As coronavirus cases rise in Florida, South Florida’s mayors and other elected officials continue to express frustration that Gov. Ron DeSantis won’t communicate with them.

Many of these leaders can’t get the governor to answer their calls, the Miami Herald reported Thursday, the same day the Florida Department of Health’s announced 13,000 new COVID-19 cases in the state.

With 13,164 new cases, that brings the state’s total number of coronavirus cases since the pandemic started in March to 1,168,483. Florida is one of only three states – joining California and Texas – to pass the 1 million case mark.

The total number of COVID-19 deaths in Florida is 20,594 as of Thursday. Meanwhile, hospitalizations continue to rise as well, with 59,291 state residents having been hospitalized with coronavirus since the spring.

South Florida has been one of the area’s hardest hit by the pandemic. City and county leaders have been trying to communicate with DeSantis since September, when he reopened the state. At the same time, he prohibited municipalities from enacting and enforcing local laws that would allow them to close businesses and schools or collect fines from those who refuse to follow mask ordinances.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and other elected officials want more local control as coronavirus numbers increase, the Miami Herald reported. Both want to fine anti-maskers and Suarez has indicated that he’d like to limit the indoor capacity for Miami businesses.

In November, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber and Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez joined other mayors across the state in a plea for the governor to put a statewide face mask mandate into place.

DeSantis hasn’t responded to any of their attempts at starting a dialogue about what Florida should be doing to slow the spread of COVID-19, reports said.

“I have made personal attempts, which have been unsuccessful,” said Suarez. “I’ve asked people who have acted as emissaries. It hasn’t worked.”

Though he hasn’t directly communicated with these and other South Florida leaders, the governor has doubled down on his plans to keep the state open. Despite a White House panel suggesting that Florida put more restrictions in place in order to curb coronavirus, DeSantis said he would keep bars and restaurants open at a Tuesday press conference.

Two anonymous Florida health department employees recently told CNN that in late September the state’s DOH communications director ordered them not to focus on COVID-19 in their public messaging. They said they feared their jobs would be on the line if they disobeyed the order. As a result, the DOH social media accounts have barely mentioned coronavirus since then, CNN reported.

The validity of the state’s COVID-19 death tally has also been questioned in recent days. The South Florida Sun Sentinel determined a pattern that suggest the state manipulated data and underreported coronavirus deaths in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 3 elections.