Florida’s Surgeon General is continuing to evangelize against mask wearing like it’s 2022.
His latest theory?
People wearing protective coverings over their faces simply don’t want to be seen, said the state’s Chief Health Officer and doctor of medicine at the University of Florida.
Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said a doctor at the University of California Los Angeles talked to “some of her medical residents, physicians in training who are wearing masks and it turns out it seems like some people, they just like to hide their faces, which is a really sad testament to humanity and where we are right now with just how people have dealt with all the stress and all the social media disconnection and all the craziness.”
“But part of the reason seems to be that some people like to hide their faces,” Ladapo added on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.
“Obviously, some people are still afraid and think that masks are going to help them, which is total nonsense. And that’s really sad. But there is this phenomenon now, it seems where people are trying to hide.”
Ladapo continued along this theme throughout the interview, noting that in California “people are still masking in hospitals” and that Uber drivers are “still masking.”
Ladapo was Gov. Ron DeSantis’ second Surgeon General, brought in to replace Scott Rivkees, who was deplatformed by the state of Florida (but still retained on the payroll), after Rivkees suggested in 2020 that people may need to socially distance for the foreseeable future.
–A.G. Gancarski, Florida Politics
Deborah Coffey says
He is a total idiot and complete embarrassment. ‘Nough said.
Joe D says
It figures: Dr Ladapo AGAINST the ENTIRE CDC research doctors.
Ron DeSantis’ Florida Surgeon puppet strikes again! Although the Covid threat is reduced from 2 years ago, it’s not TOTALLY gone…ESPECIALLY with people who have compromised immune systems, chronic medical conditions (diabetes/high blood pressure/ heart disease/ obesity/ respiratory illnesses). With so many people not believing in getting Immunizations, the Covid virus has been allowed to circulate (and MUTATE ), so due to the NEW Covid strains, there is a recommendation for an ADDITIONAL immunization for the mutated strains.
It SHOULD be and individual’s decision (isn’t Governor Ron BIG on individual CHOICE?), to wear a protective mask if they want to, without being shamed, or placed under suspicion.
As a Masters prepared Clinical Nurse Specialist and Certified Nurse Case Manager, I CRINGE almost every time our Florida Surgeon General speaks about COMMUNITY HEALTH issues.
His most recent RIDICULOUS announcement concerned parents of Florida school students exposed to measles making their OWN decision about whether or not they should FOLLOW the CDC GUIDELINES and keep their measles exposed students isolated at home during a potential measles infection incubation period . How IRRESPONSIBLE to take the chance of those students at school being exposed to measles from those exposed students who should be kept isolated at home!
Mona says
How did this guy graduate from medical school.? Was it American school, if so, it is a double embarrassment.
Justbob says
Just two words: disgusting and stupid.
Ed P says
Mona,
Graduated from Wake Forest University, received his medical degree from Harvard and PHD in health policy from Harvard Graduate school of Arts and Sciences.
But as once commented upon, “ it’s a turd pile of degrees”
Joe D,
The doc was right about his measles call. No issues or negative outcome based on that one. As previously commented, “just lucky that time”
As a father of 6 adult children, I often reminded them that I wish I could be as young as they were, so I could have been as smart as they were at that moment.
I’m not saying one needs to have a PHD to criticize the Doc, but sometimes we all lack a healthy dose of common sense. I guess we can’t trust parents to know what’s best for their children, we have to mandate it? Or maybe the family physician is an idiot as well?
steve houck says
It appears that the inmates are running the asylum; and trying to call the shots for all those outside the walls.
Jim says
I’d like to think that health care professionals would err on the side of caution when there is a health issue that can affect the community. This guy seems to always go in the opposite direction.
And not all parents know what’s best for their kids. Two just got convicted of buying their son a gun and failing to take any actions to protect the community from his actions (killing other people’s kids). But maybe you’re okay with the occasional “oops)”?
Mario says
This guy is a quack, typical of Republicans these days. The old stable Republican party is gone. Now mostly a bunch of crazies who talk stupid. The only choice to save us from more insanity and save the union is to vote for Biden.
Rose says
As an RN currently working, if I had to work directly under his direction I would contact my malpractice insurance company to ask if it was safe for me to practice under his direction. He has multiple serious complaints from previous hospitals across the US. He has a history of conspiracy allegations and he lacks the advance education and experience to second guess the CDC. This was known and documented in his professional records prior to being hired in Fl. If you are immune compromised wear a mask please. If you believe this charlatan then get educated on who needs to wear a mask.
FlaPharmTech says
Yup, that’s precisely why I mask at work, and also so I can mouth obscenities at the patients while incognito. Absolutely nothing at all to do with the spread of disease. Did Covid not teach this “doctor” a thing or two!?
Mark says
Wild that a doctor would belittle people for wearing masks in hospitals–literally a place filled with sick people, many of whom are immune-compromised.
Deborah Coffey says
Here are the Phd’s criticizing: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/27/joe-ladapo-university-of-florida-00128541
Ed P says
Let’s start with the fact that a measles out break is only an issue for the unvaccinated ( most seniors have natural immunity if immune system is healthy) and 90 percent of kindergarten aged children have been vaccinated in Florida.
Second, where are measles coming into US? We are told international travel. Are the “new comers” as the liberal media now refers to illegal immigrants part of that travel? I suspect yes. So exposure is a constant, wouldn’t you agree? Last month saw 10 new Florida cases, nine in Broward county around Fort Lauderdale and 1 in Polk County near Orlando. The original spring outbreak this year was at Manatee Bay Elementary School without further incident.
I’m not accepting of a parental opps as you post, but measles can be transmitted 4 day prior to rash and up to 4 days after. So what parent would send their child to school with the rash, high fever, runny nose and watery eyes? Prior to rash who knows?
It is not a high risk decision by Dr Ladapo to allow local school, health officials, and parents to decide the isolation period. We can not legislate out the problem of poor parenting or just plain stupid, can we?
So if parents won’t vaccinate a child, would someone mandating they keep their unvaccinated child home work?
Joe D says
Well, “Seniors” DO NOT HAVE NATURAL IMMUNITY…many seniors have immunity because since the 1960’s have had measles immunizations REQUIRED for school registration. My children all have been vaccinated..and LUCKILY my Grandchildren have been immunized.
However, since the pandemic, due to drop off of Pediatric Care and parents refusing to get their children immunized, I would be VERY upset, if an unvaccinated child was exposed, and allowed to come to school and expose my grandchildren to a potentially deadly.
If the Florida Surgeon General was so “correct”, then why does the CDC give the EXACT OPPOSITE of his recommendations.
Joe D says
I was unaware of our Florida Surgeon General’s employment issues prior to his current Florida position, but it explains a lot…and yes, as an RN, Clinical Nurse Specialist, and Certified Nurse Case Manager, I would be checking the NURSE PRACTICE ACT from Florida, before I followed many of his proposals, because MY LICENSE is MY responsibility…regardless of what the Florida Surgeon says.
Joe D says
Thank you for the reference article. OMG…it’s WORSE than I ever expected! REALLY…how is this information not made widely KNOWN in the wider MEDICAL COMMUNITY…I guess POLITICAL POWER trump s( no pun intended) the TRUTH!
Marlenemarty says
Actully those who got the jab are responsible for most of the mutations. A virus will mutate to adapt to whatever is thrown at it. The flu is proof of that, every year a new strain comes out. The flu shots are only very effective on one year, then a new strain comes out. Most of us have some immunity so we only catch the flu every 3 or 4 years when it has mutated enough to infect us.
Marlenemarty says
As a child I was exposed to all the childhood viruses in fact most parents of that era deliberately exposed their children to these pesky illnesses. I’m 73 and still have a decent immune system. I got covid in 2019, before the vaccine came out. My great grandson got the omicron variety and gave it to me. That particular strain wasn’t so bad. I still won’t take the vaccine, but that is my choice.
Bill C says
For that matter, washing your hands is not necessary either. (snark)
Ed P says
If your child is vaccinated there is practically zero risk of getting measles. Zero Are you a retired medical professional?
And natural immunity because the bulk of us seniors still around today had measles and lived, along with chicken pocks, mumps, scarlet fever, and the flu. Hell, I even had whooping cough and pneumonia!
c says
You folks seem to think that his current job entails any sort of care or compassion for people …. It doesn’t.
His one and only job is to be political support to keep DeSantis rear-end clean by supporting him with any and all necessary lies and misdirection regarding medical depredations (although not limited to things Ladapo actually *knows* about – He’ll “expertly” pontificate on ANY subject Ronnie aims him at).
This way Ronnie can claim ‘science’ supports him.
DaleL says
I wore a mask today while I was out. Thursday night, I had a sore throat. By Friday afternoon, after 2 COVID tests and no fever, I determined I had a cold. For me cold is not life threatening, but it sure is miserable for a couple of days.
Right now there are couple of people I would love to hug without wearing a mask. Joseph Ladapo is one of them. For everyone else, I’m mostly staying home or wearing a mask to avoid spreading my cold.
As “Jim says” wrote, I also would like health officials to err on the side of caution.
Ed P says
Your satirical sarcasm about, mouthing obscenities and hiding your face might be missed by some of the Flagler Live community.
They just might mistakenly add that to your dislike for the “higher ups” and the fact that you think your employer is over priced and you shop Aldi as well.
How difficult is it to find the Publix Pharmacist in a Palm Coast store wearing a mask? Your real identity could be revealed.( my sarcasm)
But on a serious note, your CEO earns a fraction of Krogers CEO pay.
Less than a 1/3.
Pogo says
@FlaglerLive, asking for a fellow human being:
What is your policy about smug shits who “joke” about doxxing people?
Related
https://www.google.com/search?q=doxxing
Don’t hire one owned by local criminals if you’re not in the club
https://www.floridabar.org/
“Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Joe D says
To MarleneMarty:
ABSOLUTELY FALSE…
the mutations are from NON-VACCINATED individuals getting infected, and then spreading a now potentially NEWLY mutated variant to other (mostly unvaccinated, immunosuppressed or medically fragile patients).
Since this is a VIRUS and not a BACTERIA, each time the infection goes from one infected person to another, it both takes some of the patient’s DNA with it (now it’s a mutation), and leaves some of its DNA behind in the patient (as in LONG Covid and other complications) once the initial infection has subsided. Each time the Covid virus mutates we stand the chance of a new Covid VARIANT escaping current immunizations, and creating a NEW PANDEMIC.
As a RN, Master’s Prepared Clinical Nurse Specialist, and Certified Nurse Case Manager, recently retired from a major internationally recognized East Coast University Teaching Hospital…I got my information from the CDC National Medical information DATABASE …
Exactly WHICH medical DATABASE did you get YOUR misinformation from!?!
People getting their MISINFORMATION from Social Media, and spreading it as FACT, is WHY this PANDEMIC circulated so long, and killed so many people!
Joe D says
Not EVERYONE from our generation SURVIVED those childhood diseases as well as you (and I did)
It’s GREAT that you have such a strong immune system!
Jim says
So what parent would send a kid to school with a rash, high fever and runny nose? Are you joking? There are countless parents struggling to keep their job while raising kids and some do send their kids to school like that because they don’t have viable options. That’s just a sad fact in these times so I do think his decision did put the community at risk and it was not necessary. Even by your 90% vaccine rate that means one out of every 10 kids was at risk. Personally I don’t find that acceptable.
FlaglerLive says
No different than trolling or threatening. Not allowed here.
Ray W. says
Actually, since it is widely accepted in medical literature that there are four different genetic virus strains that can comprise the flu (H3/N2, for example), and since each strain is susceptible to mutation, there are always multiple versions of the flu out there, with each version of the flu mutating in its own way, often several times in a flu season. This is why it is so difficult to develop a fully effective flu vaccine each new season. In a good year, the vaccine has an effectiveness rate above 60%. In a great year, it is higher. Some years, the effectiveness rate is in the 40% range. So says the literature.
The SARS-Covid2-19, as I understand the literature, is a single strain organism. Yes, it can mutate, and it often does, but it is not the same type of virus as the flu virus. I knew this when I read for the first time that it was a “novel” virus. “Novel”, as I understood the medical term in the field of infectious diseases, meant that this form of virus was not simply a mutation of an older virus; it was a brand-new virus. The original SARS-Covid virus, designated 1, never made it out of China. It was contained and disappeared more than a decade ago, before it could mutate. Its distinct genetic organism has never reappeared.
Like SARS-Covid1, the original goal in 2020 was to limit the spread of SARS-Covid2 in order to perhaps have it disappear. Only after time passed and the viral spread became statistically broad enough was it appropriate to designate it as a “pandemic.” In time, when the mutations began to happen faster and faster, it became perhaps possible to call it “endemic.” The flu has long been defined as an endemic virus; it will never fully go away. That may also be the future descriptive status of the SARS-Covid2 strain of the virus.
As an aside, it seems to me that Joe D is right in his response to Marlenemarty, not that it matters what I think. I accepted long ago that whenever I read medical articles, I was reviewing other people’s research; I was not engaging in my own research. Far too many FlaglerLive commenters think that when they read other people’s research that they are themselves engaging in research. We might be broadening our foundation of knowledge, but we are not creating new knowledge, which is one of the purposes of research. Joe D, having spent a professional lifetime in health care has a far greater foundation of knowledge about infectious diseases than does the vast majority of FlaglerLive commenters, including me. That doesn’t prove that Joe D is automatically right, but he is worth listening too. At least he does not present as a “pestilential” partisan member of faction, at least on medical issues. Maybe he is a virtuous partisan member of faction. Who knows?