The Editorial Board of one of Florida’s top newspapers is criticizing Republican Governor Ron DeSantis as a “fraud” and a “phony” for his horrific handling of the Sunshine State’s COVID crisis, and then taking a “victory lap” for one week of improved results after “Florida’s summer of suffering.”

“Florida led the nation in case rates for much of the summer, and our governor was silent. Well, not totally silent. He did rail against mask and vaccine mandates, measures intended to prevent people from falling ill,” the Orlando Sentinel’s Editorial Board writes. “Now, a governor whose sole contribution to fighting the outbreak was to expand antibody treatments for people after they got infected is taking full credit for the decline in cases.”

“What a fraud. What a phony,” they declare, chastising the governor with White House wishes for having “the gall, the nerve, to take a victory lap.”

The paper notes that from July to October approximately 21,000 Floridians died from COVID. (The total number of Florida COVID deaths is 59,495.)

“Compare that to California, a warm-weather state with nearly twice the population of Florida and a governor who believes in public health. California had just 8,600 deaths during that same summer surge, according to Johns Hopkins,” they note.

DeSantis “could have made another major push for Floridians to get vaccinated. But he didn’t, possibly because his Republican Party is rapidly aligning itself with the anti-vaxxer movement,” the writer, adding that he chose “to make masks a cultural wedge issue” by banning any local mandates.

“And now, the do-nothing governor is trying to claim credit for this surge coming to an end,” the editors lament. “It is DeSantis’ final and most essential command — to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. How Orwellian.”

Four school teachers in Broward County, Florida just died from COVID-19 in one day. Three were unvaccinated, CNN reports (video below.)

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis continues to refuse to allow any mask or vaccine mandates as coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths explode in his state.

“Within a 24-hour span, we had an assistant teacher pass away, a teacher at her school pass away, an elementary teacher pass away and another teacher at a high school,” Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco told CBS News.

Broward County’s School Board this week voted to defy DeSantis’ ban on masks mandates.

Florida recorded 24,869 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, far more than any state in the nation. Less than half of Florida’s total population is fully vaccinated.

357 people in Florida died from coronavirus yesterday, per data from The New York Times.

BREAKING: WFOR is reporting that 4 teachers from Broward county have died of covid in a single day.

Three were unvaccinated. We don’t know the status of the 4th. pic.twitter.com/uT4XW7irc5

— Brianna Keilar (@brikeilarcnn) August 13, 2021

Newly released emails show that Trump administration officials openly celebrated after they successfully meddled to get the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to downplay the risks of the novel coronavirus.

The Washington Post reports that former Trump science adviser Paul Alexander wrote an email to then-HHS public affairs chief Michael Caputo in which he boasted about getting the CDC to back off language in two different reports that he believed painted too dire of a picture of the COVID-19 crisis.

“Pointing to one change — where CDC leaders allegedly changed the opening sentence of a report about spread of the virus among younger people after Alexander pressured them — Alexander wrote to Caputo, calling it a ‘small victory but a victory nonetheless and yippee!!!'” the Post reports.

Alexander also told Caputo about how he teamed up with Trump adviser Dr. Scott Atlas to alter a CDC weekly report on coronavirus-related deaths among young Americans.

The emails also show Alexander and Caputo wanted to cook up numbers on the alleged spike in suicides that were occurring during the pandemic, despite the fact that the number of suicides in the United States in 2020 actually fell by 6 percent.

“We need solid estimates to be able to say something like: 50,000 more cancer deaths! 40,000 more heart attacks! 25,000 more suicides!” Caputo wrote.