DeSantis camp brags Florida kids won’t have to go through ‘hell’ of masking in schools again

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign boasted the Sunshine State’s protections against COVID-19 mandate policies, such as forced masking, as figures and areas across the U.S. increasingly call for such measures.

In an email to parents in Silver Spring, Maryland, an elementary school’s principal said that because of “3 or more” testing positive for COVID-19 in the past 10 days, masking will become required in “identified classes or activities.”

They said masking will “become optional again” following a 10-day period.

“Thankfully kids in Florida will not have to go through this hell since [Gov. Ron DeSantis] PERMANENTLY BANNED school mask mandates 2 years ago,” said the DeSantis War Room, an X account that serves as a wing of his political team’s rapid response.

In another post, the DeSantis War Room posted a “map of every state that has passed all of the following,” with Florida being the sole state highlighted.

“Ban on state and local lockdowns, Ban on state and local mask mandates, Ban on state and local vaccine mandates, Ban on gain-of-function research,” they said, listing off Florida’s various implementations against COVID-19 policies.

On news that President Joe Biden will now start “masking while indoors,” the team called such activities “INSANITY.”

The news of Biden deciding to wear a mask again comes after First Lady Jill Biden tested positive for the virus.

More recently, DeSantis signed legislation in May that permanently bans COVID-19 restrictions in both the public and private sector. Schools can also not implement COVID-19 vaccine or mask mandates.

“The purpose of [those policies] was not to safeguard your health. The purpose of them was to control your behavior,” DeSantis said at the time. “They wanted you to behave the way they thought that they were willing to use coercion to do it. So that was totally unacceptable.”

“We want to make sure that people are protected in Florida. California doesn’t want to do that. We want to do it,” the governor said.

DeSantis’ office recently called it “GROSS” to advocate for the masking of children.

DeSantis press secretary Jeremy Redfern referenced a report from CNN encouraging those at “high risk of serious illness or death from Covid-19” to “dust off those N95 masks.”

For the post’s photo, CNN used a child wearing an N95 mask.

“They’re using a picture of a child in an N95. Gross,” Redfern said.

“Luckily, @GovRonDeSantis proposed and signed legislation that banned mask mandates in Florida,” he added.

“We aren’t going to play in the federal government’s biomedical security theater.”

DeSantis, set to resume his presidential campaign this week after preparing for and responding to Hurricane Idalia, has made his opposition to COVID-19 lockdown policies of the past a central mark of his 2024 presidential campaign.

At the first GOP primary debate Wednesday, DeSantis gave fiery comments on Dr. Anthony Fauci and COVID-19 lockdowns.

“In Florida, we led the country out of lockdown, we kept our state free, and free and open, and I can tell you this, as your president, I will never let the deep state bureaucrats lock you down,” he said.

“You don’t take somebody like Fauci and coddle him!” he said. “You bring Fauci in, you sit him down, and you say ‘Anthony, you are fired!’”