Thiessen defends DeSantis as 'one of the best governors' after Biden attack: Hospital data doesn't jibe

Former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen defended Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after President Biden attacked him and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as being "in the way" of coronavirus mitigation, adding that the true data from Sunshine State hospitals doesn't match White House claims they're being "overrun" with virus patients and deaths.

"I think Governor DeSantis is one of the best governors in the country when it comes to dealing with COVID. You played the quote from Jen Psaki saying that hospitals are overrun. It's the Broward Health CEO that says 80% of their hospitalizations are for non-COVID patients. They're not overrun," said Thiessen on "The Story."

Broward is a heavily-populated county centered on Fort Lauderdale and lies just north of Miami.

Thiessen added that in Jackson Health, which is one county south in Miami-Dade, reportedly only 6% of their COVID admissions are of vaccinated people. He argued that DeSantis is therefore not overseeing an abnormal or dangerous spike in preventable casualties as the president implied, but that it is simply the unvaccinated who are being admitted at higher rates.

Thiessen said Florida's numbers are not very different from national data showing 99% of COVID deaths are from unvaccinated individuals.

"It's a tragedy. These are mostly preventable deaths. The reality is, if you've been vaccinated for COVID-19, you're about as likely to die from a lightning strike as you are to die from COVID-19. You're basically bulletproof," he said.

Thiessen criticized Biden and Democrats' congoing claims that DeSantis unduly endangered his constituents by largely keeping his state open while states like Pennsylvania, New York, California and New Jersey locked down and imposed draconian socioeconomic restrictions.

He added that Biden also fails to account for natural immunity gained from previously infected Americans. An Israeli study showed exponentially stronger immunity in such individuals versus previously uninfected vaccinated people.

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"The nonimmune population is shrinking. They're ones who are dying, largely getting ill and we should encourage people to get vaccinated but should not lock down the country or keep kids out of school because of the unvaccinated population getting sick," Thiessen said, adding that teachers unions appear to be eager to use the predicted September peak of the Delta variant as a reason to keep schools closed and children at home.

"People are shaking their heads because they see what's coming," he said. "Kids are supposed to go back to school. They see the teachers unions are going to use this as a pretext to avoid going to school saying kids have to be vaccinated before the teachers can come back, which is absolutely patently absurd."

"There's no excuse not to open schools."