MAGA Retirement Enclave Is Ground Zero in Florida Vaccine Shitshow

[Zorro]

From claims of flagrant partisan favoritism to fears of getting sick in long lines, the rollout is not going smoothly in a state where the governor’s COVID skepticism is legendary.

On Christmas Eve, Dr. Jeff Lowenkron, a top doctor in The Villages, delivered an ominous holiday message to residents about the spread of coronavirus in Florida’s most politically infamous retirement community.

As the chief medical officer for The Villages Health, a health-care provider that operates six clinics in the sprawling central Florida development, Lowenkron has access to real-time stats about new cases and hospitalizations. According to his Dec. 24 weekly email newsletter, a copy of which was shared with The Daily Beast, Lowenkron revealed that the two main hospitals were treating 94 patients with COVID-19, of whom 19 were in the intensive care units.

“Local hospitalization numbers for COVID are at the highest they have been and are rising,” Lowenkron warned. “The Villages Health has seen an increase in positive test numbers in our test sites, as well as among our staff who are treating patients.”

But Lowenkron didn’t give a timetable for when Villagers could expect to get vaccinated. This even though Gov. Ron DeSantis had just days earlier used the Trumpian retiree stronghold as the backdrop for his big announcement that, unlike much of the rest of the country, Florida would be prioritizing senior citizens over essential workers.

On Tuesday, Shirley Schantz, a 73-year-old retired nurse, said she had not gotten any more information about The Villages Health’s vaccine rollout plan since Lowenkron’s mass email. “There seems to be no plan,” Schantz said. “If there is a plan, most of the residents don’t know about it.”

What is certain is that five Republican Villagers who have held elected office or positions within local GOP clubs were among those who received the vaccine last week when DeSantis held the press conference at the UF Health The Villages Hospital. The Republican Villagers’ starring roles ignited criticisms from their Democratic counterparts and the editorial board of the online newspaper The Villages-News, which was the first to report on the quintet’s Republican connections, as well as their ties to Mark Gary Morse.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-villages-in-sumter-and-lake-county-are-ground-zero-in-florida-vaccine-shitshow

[rzemanfl]

1. I wanna live long enough to go up there and buy these fuckers' stuff at

their estate sales.