How to murder your citizens
By 
I’m not sure it’s possible to care less about the COVID-19 pandemic than Donald Trump, but his Piggly Wiggly store brand version sure is making it close:
As Florida became a global epicenter of the coronavirus, Gov. Ron DeSantis held one meeting this month with his top public health official, Scott Rivkees, according to the governor’s schedule. His health department has sidelined scientists, halting briefings last month with disease specialists and telling the experts there was not sufficient personnel from the state to continue participating.
“I never received information about what happened with my ideas or results,” said Thomas Hladish, a University of Florida research scientist whose regular calls with the health department ended June 29. “But I did hear the governor say the models were wrong about everything.”
DeSantis (R) this month traveled to Miami to hold a roundtable with South Florida mayors, whose region was struggling as a novel coronavirus hot spot. But the Republican mayor of Hialeah was shut out, weeks after saying the governor “hasn’t done much” for a city disproportionately affected by the virus.
As the virus spread out of control in Florida, decision-making became increasingly shaped by politics and divorced from scientific evidence, according to interviews with 64 current and former state and administration officials, health administrators, epidemiologists, political operatives and hospital executives. The crisis in Florida, these observers say, has revealed the shortcomings of a response built on shifting metrics, influenced by a small group of advisers and tethered at every stage to the Trump administration, which has no unified plan for addressing the national health emergency but has pushed for states to reopen.
And again, the closest thing Donald Trump has to a redeeming feature is how much he loves throwing his most pathetic sycophants to the gators:
As the convention approached, DeSantis downplayed the grim numbers and suggested the situation was improving. But this week, Trump and the White House sounded much less enthusiastic about Florida’s progress against the coronavirus.
Trump acknowledged the coronavirus was growing into “big fires,” especially in Florida, and he said the state was in a “big, tough position.” Coronavirus task force leader Deborah Birx warned that Florida was at risk of teetering into a full blown outbreak. Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway went on to criticize the states that have become hotspots and blamed the governors.
“They opened up some of the industries too quickly, like bars,” Conway told reporters.