“It’s no secret that Gov. Ron DeSantis opposes mask mandates, especially the idea of requiring masks for school children even though many of them remain ineligible for vaccines. But DeSantis on Monday reinforced that idea during a nearly hourlong roundtable he held behind closed doors at the state Capitol. It featured a clinical psychiatrist, a Stanford professor who has been highlighted several times during the pandemic by the governor, a professor in pediatrics, a parent with children at a Tallahassee charter school, and a student who was forced to wear a mask this past year at an elite Tallahassee private school. DeSantis’ office didn’t let the (corporate, err, traditional, err, mainstream, err, not on the home team) media know about the roundtable until hours after it happened or even allow the state-run Florida Channel to record the event. His office did distribute a transcript late Monday evening when asked about it.”

“And that transcript revealed that participants in the event decried the idea of requiring masks for school children with one participant calling it a form of ‘child abuse.’ Several of those who did take part in the event did stress that vaccines work. But DeSantis – whose campaign boasted recently that its ‘Don’t Fauci my Florida’ T-shirts have turned into big sellers – complained about what he called a strict orthodoxy at work when it came to masks. ‘Our confidence in some of the pediatric leadership and some of the medical leadership has been shattered by how these people have reacted to this pandemic by not following data, ignoring countervailing evidence, sticking to their script, regardless of the outcomes, ignoring harms, particularly for young people and being willing and even delighting and imposing, really unspeakable burdens on the most defenseless and least dangerous segment of our society in terms of this, the kids,’ the governor said” – Politico.