A Democrat looking to unseat the Florida governor has made increasingly pointed attacks about his Covid policies for public schools.
CNN anchor Kate Bolduan interviewed Democrat gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried Thursday. Bolduan questioned Florida’s Secretary of Agriculture about her claims Governor Ron DeSantis is harming school children by banning mask mandates in Florida schools.
Early on in her segment, Bolduan said, “The governor’s office has not responded to several requests for comment from CNN about this but DeSantis has said that consistently that masks shouldn’t be the school’s decision, it should be the parent’s decision.”
The anchor’s claim was quickly disputed by Governor DeSantis’ Press Secretary Christina Pushaw, who posted a biting rebuttal on her Twitter account. Pushaw contradicted Bolduan’s statement and said, “In fact, CNN contacted the FORMER comms person who moved to a new agency 5 months ago.”
This morning, @NikkiFried went on CNN to demand forced-masking and falsely accuse @GovRonDeSantis of “hiding data.” @KateBolduan asserted “CNN contacted the governor’s office with no response.” In fact, CNN contacted the FORMER comms person who moved to a new agency 5 months ago pic.twitter.com/IlyIS6R7SU
— Christina Pushaw (@ChristinaPushaw) October 7, 2021
Pushaw added a follow-up tweet noting CNN contacted the office’s general media inbox. “At 9:22 AM, CNN wrote to our general media inbox, expecting an immediate response (less than an hour) to detailed allegations that require specific data to refute,” she posted. “We sent a response and look forward to @KateBolduan correcting the record!
At 9:22 AM, CNN wrote to our general media inbox, expecting an immediate response (less than an hour) to detailed allegations that require specific data to refute. We sent a response and look forward to @KateBolduan correcting the record!
— Christina Pushaw (@ChristinaPushaw) October 7, 2021
During the broadcast, Bolduan said, ” Your survey of Covid data in Florida schools show districts that started the year with mask requirements saw infection rates that were three times lower than districts without mask requirements.”
Fried agreed that was her contention and continued to disparage the sitting governor and state education officials. “Unfortunately, they don’t care about the facts, the data and the evidence,” Fried told Bolduan. “All they care about is winning political points and to harm our school boards.”
Florida’s Agriculture Secretary was expanding on points she made in a release from her office earlier that day. “Fried said that the five largest school districts in Florida requiring masks had an average of .48 peak cases of COVID-19 per capita,” according to Florida TV station WESH. “She said the five smallest school districts, none of which required masks, had an average of 3.51 peak cases per capita; over seven times higher.”
The state’s health department quickly blasted Fried’s statement, calling it “misinformation regarding school data that lacks epidemiological accuracy and credibility.” The health department noted there is no evidence schools are high risk spreaders of Covid-19 and said her calculations included errors that distorted the per capita rate she quoted.
Her data was falsely interpreted, opined the Health Department Commissioner, adding “Further review of the data by a qualified epidemiologist should have occurred prior to publication.”
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