DeSantis Introduces “Buck the CDC” COVID State Guidance

February 24, 2022 Updated 5:23 P.M. ET

TALLAHASSEE (FCV) – Thursday, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) and Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced a string of new state health protocols for COVID-19 dubbed “Buck the CDC.”

The protocols will be “pushing back on unscientific corporate masking, reducing isolation for all Floridians including those in schools and daycares, and recommending that physicians should exercise their individual clinical judgement and expertise based on their patients’ needs and preferences.”

The state of Florida will now officially guide entities operating in Florida to not mask employees, for physicians to reevaluate treatment protocols, and limiting isolation rules for all Floridians to 5 days.

In support of the idea, Ladapo said, “The State of Florida has widespread natural and vaccine-induced immunity.”

“Evidence suggests that most secondary transmission occurs early on. Our state will continue to make decisions for Floridians rooted in sound science, not fear, whether they are working or in school.”

DeSantis blasted current health guidelines for being over-restrictive and unscientific.

“What this does is really recognize reality,” he said.

Ladapo emphasized that high-risk individuals still must pursue treatment if they test positive for COVID-19.

DeSantis criticized businesses for continuing to force-mask their employees and that it is bad to “marginalize” communities based on occupation and vaccination status.

“You have all these people having such a good time, and the poor servers are forced masked, and I will ask them ‘Are you allowed to take the mask off?’ They say ‘Not yet,'” he said.

Currently, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says to “wear a mask indoors in public” indoors in public. It recommends masking indoors regardless of vaccination status if in an area of substantial or high community transmission.

Americans are told by the CDC to wear a mask for 10 days after being infected with COVID-19, even if they are healthy and asymptomatic.

DeSantis has long criticized Democrats and the Biden Administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, shortly after COVID-19 spread across the U.S., DeSantis rapidly let up any existing state restrictions on business.

Ladapo has been claimed by leftists to be “anti-vax” and “unqualified.” He is Nigerian-born and graduated from Harvard Medical School. Later, he worked at the University of California, Los Angeles medicine school.