Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis showed Wednesday that he is not a leader, but a follower. And he’s following the wrong people.
DeSantis issued a statewide “stay-at-home” order Wednesday, one day after refusing to do so simply because President Donald Trump had a change of heart. He pretty much said so. He also literally took the “essential” and “non-essential” business list from the stay-at-home order 
issued by Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez.
Clearly, DeSantis doesn’t have a mind of his own.
Before Wednesday, he was happy to let counties and cities take the lead, allowing for a lot of different guidelines as you crossed borders. We have some places where the curfew starts at 10 p.m. and some places where it starts at midnight. Even locally, Miami has been quicker to act and shut business down than the county, which has dragged its feet, also in deference to Trump.
Trump’s change in “demeanor,” DeSantis told reporters, caused him to rethink his own decision.
“The President just the other day announced they are going to do a 30-day extension for the current guidelines,” DeSantis was quoted as saying by CNN. He called it a “national pause” and admitted “the guidelines don’t call for any new actions beyond what was there previously.” Still, he said all Florida residents should limit any exposure outside the home to just the bare necessities.
Read related: Miami-Dade COVID19 focus stays on seniors as data says younger at risk
But you could drive a Mack truck through the DeSantis order. That’s because it is mirrored after the county order. While closing most malls, bars, restaurants and casinos, it leaves religious institutions basically open to do whatever they want and uses the 
Gimenez list — the one the mayor has amended four or five times — as the model for the businesses open and closed.
The Gimenez list!
That allows supermarkets, clinics, banks, pharmacies, hardware stores, pawn shops, child care centers, gas stations, construction sites and a number of other “essential” businesses to remain open. Business owners have to ensure that customers adhere to the CDC’s social distancing guidelines of staying six feet apart. Parks and beaches are closed, but you can go outside to jog or walk the dog as long as you practice social distancing.
So what’s different? Nada. As the governor himself said, the guidelines don’t call for any new action.
One longtime county political observer, a moderate Republican, noted that the governor has made all these terrible decisions since his wife has been MIA, caring for their new baby. She’s the smart one of the pair.
Meanwhile, in another complete lapse of leadership, DeSantis would allow almost 2,500 human beings to just die out on the water on a pair of Holland American cruise ships that want to dock at Port Everglades after more than three at sea with eight 
people who have tested positive for coronavirus and close to 200 more with flu-like symptoms. They’ve been refused to dock at cities from Chile up the coast. Four people have already died on board.
Even if there weren’t 311 Americans on the Rotterdam and Zaandam ships — which should be reaching our shores by Thursday morning — those people need more help than most of the seniors being tested for no reason because they’re negative.
That’s a real humanitarian crisis in need of true leadership — which we are sorely lacking from top to bottom.
Read related: Youth Fair ‘field hospital’ goes up with 250 cots for non-COVID (?) patients
How is it possible that the county can set up a 250-cot ‘field hospital’ in a parking lot at the Youth Fair grounds in a few days but the state government can’t set up a field hospital or isolation center at the Broward port? What is the National Guard doing?
These people must be allowed to get off those ships, but there has to be a protocol set up. 
They cannot be allowed to just stroll into our communities after more than two weeks of social distancing here. They have to be tested and then kept safe and separate, the negatives from the positives, for at least 14 days or until they test negative twice. But on land.
Why is the government leaving it up to cruise line and forcing them to pay for the welfare of these people? What is the government for if not to provide security? These people’s very security is threatened. Certainly the cruise line, which is bleeding money and will be fighting this stigma for life, will help out with meals and medical assistance or whatever. Just let them dock and get them healthcare. We’ll figure out the details of who pays for what later!
We’re delivering hundreds of thousands of meals to seniors who maybe don’t even need them and we can’t help these people who are basically prisoners without a country?
And, not for nothing, but if the guv and local pols are worried about what this COVID19 community spread has done to our economy and tourism industry, just wait until the images and stories about the death ships just off our coast start going viral.
No stay-at-home order with giant holes in it is going to save us from that.
Gov. Ron DeSantis fails to lead, follows on COVID19, forgets his humanity added by Ladra on
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