Will state allow pharmacies to administer safe, free COVID therapy?
BY: LAURA CASSELS – SEPTEMBER 13, 2021 7:00 AM
While President Joe Biden and Gov. Ron DeSantis clash regularly over management of the deadly resurgence of COVID-19, they agree on this: Approved vaccines and monoclonal antibody therapy are the best medical tools for fighting coronavirus and its Delta variant.
The Democratic president and the Republican governor who might run against him in 2024 both call for more people to be vaccinated, stressing that approved vaccines are both safe and effective, and reduce the spread of the virus and development of new strains. They both promote monoclonal antibody therapy as a nearly miraculous treatment for people who get infected, as long as they get it early.
But the accord stops there. They strongly disagree about whether vaccines and COVID restrictions such as face-masking should be mandatory, with Biden using his federal authority to impose mandates under federal jurisdiction for the common good and DeSantis banning mandates in Florida in the name of personal choice.
DeSantis has conspicuously declined federal offers to send “COVID surge response” teams to Florida with supplies and personnel to help bring down the state’s high rates of infections and hospitalizations. When the Florida Department of Health confirmed it had, in fact, requested and received hundreds of ventilators and other equipment from the federal stockpile, as reported by CNN and other news media, DeSantis told reporters on Aug. 11 that he hadn’t known about or authorized the request.
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