By The FirstMiami Beach mayor Dan Gelber faced a growing backlash on social media Monday after suggesting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was partially responsible for new variants of COVID-19.
“And then he just realized there was a political opportunity if he made this about some supposed freedom,” Gelber said Sunday on CNN. “Which, of course, it’s not. We require vaccines for kids in school. We require people to do things that don’t endanger their neighbors or strangers even.”
“He has made this a wedge issue,” Gelber continued. “And in a health care crisis, when you make something a wedge issue and you divide the public so that half the public does one thing and half the public does the other, you get what we’re getting right now, which is variants still coming, people still getting sick, and this disease still with us.”
“But right now when it comes to this, for whatever reason, our governor and legislature have decided that they’re going to champion not taking the [vaccine] rather than urging people to take the [vaccine],” Gelber said.
Watch Gelber’s comments above.
