PLANT CITY, Fla. — During a press conference at the Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City, Gov. Ron DeSantis was asked about criticism he's received from some parents after he recently let a group of students know how frustrated he was with face mask policies.
The whole ordeal began last week when the governor traveled to the University of South Florida to announce a $20 million award for cybersecurity education. As he approached the podium, he looked at a group of students and encouraged them to remove their face coverings.
"You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take them off," DeSantis was heard saying. "Honestly, it's not doing anything, and we've gotta stop with this COVID theater."
"So if you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous," he continued, sighing into the microphones.
Some critics blasted DeSantis as a "bully," while supporters praised him and said the subsequent media coverage of the matter was slanted. DeSantis seemed to lean into the situation, with a fundraising email that slammed the "biased" reporting of the story.
Predictably, he was asked about it when he was back in the Tampa Bay region on Monday.
"I go into the room, and no adult had a mask on – which is fine, I don't want people to," DeSantis explained. "But all the kids had it on, so it seemed to me someone told them 'you had to do this.' And I just wanted to make sure they understood, with me, you do not have to do that."
The governor went on to say he felt the students should feel free to remove their masks – and that it was ultimately their choice.
"But I also said something that needs to be said: When you mask young kids, when adults are telling these kids to mask, that is theater. That is not saving people's lives," DeSantis said. "It's making them suffer a burden."
The governor said there's a lack of "high-quality data" that supports masking children in schools.
The federal research about masks is still ongoing and nuanced. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, well-fitting face coverings and respirators have shown some effectiveness in filtering virus-sized particles in lab settings, but the CDC says "few studies" have measured their "real-word effectiveness" in preventing people from getting COVID-19.
The CDC has acknowledged that cloth masks are believed to be least effective against the spread of COVID but that N95 and KN95 respirators can help.
Ultimately, the CDC says "layered prevention strategies" work best in helping prevent the spread of the virus. That means considering masks while also thinking about other measures like washing your hands regularly, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and getting vaccinated against COVID-19. Several measures at once can help you find the most protection and comfort in your own life, according to the CDC.
The CDC recently amended its COVID-19 guidance to say schools should consider mask policies in areas with higher case and hospitalization levels, while areas with low transmission could do without.
For his part, DeSantis maintains that Floridians are free to take in all the information they can find and make their own decisions about their health.
"Whether you're older, middle-age or younger, you deserve the truth," DeSantis said Monday. "And I'm sick of the adults telling these kids that they're somehow putting people at risk by not putting a piece of cloth over their face. They're not. If they choose to do it because they think that's what they want to do or their parents are making them do it, like I said it's a free state. But we are absolutely going to speak the truth about this. We have no place in Florida for COVID theater."
DeSantis didn't hesitate to take a shot at his political rivals and their different handling of the pandemic.
"The same people that criticize me for telling kids they don't have to wear a mask and it's not effective, they were the ones that spent two years forcing kids out of school," the governor told reporters. "They didn't want the schools open in 2020. They wanted to force them to wear masks. They wanted to force vaccines on employees or have them lose their jobs. They wanted to force and mandate and lock down this entire time. And if it wasn't for me, they may have been able to get away with it."