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DeSantis To University Students: ‘You Do Not Have To Wear Those Masks…Please Take Them Off’

   DailyWire.com
Key Speakers At Conservative Political Action Conference Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. Launched in 1974, the Conservative Political Action Conference is the largest gathering of conservatives in the world. Photographer: Tristan Wheelock/Bloomberg via Getty Images Bloomberg / Contributor
Photographer: Tristan Wheelock/Bloomberg/Contributor via Getty Images

On Wednesday, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) told students at a university event they could remove their masks if they wanted to do so. 

DeSantis was visiting the University of South Florida to announce funds for education in cybersecurity. DeSantis told students behind the podium that they could take off their face masks. 

“You do not have to wear those masks,” Governor DeSantis said. “I mean, please take them off. 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, this is ridiculous.”

Some of the students proceeded to take off their masks.

DeSantis pushing back against mask-wearing is nothing new. He has repeatedly opposed mask mandates in schools and signed an executive order keeping state funding from schools that enforce them. 

Last month, he said parents should be able to sue school districts if their child “was illegally forced-masked this year in Florida.” He cited “any negative effects of it, if they have speech problems, if they have emotional problems, physical problems.” 

“They flouted the law and they should be liable for the consequences of their actions,” DeSantis said.

The governor also announced on Tuesday that Florida’s surgeon general has released new guidelines for Florida employees to give them freedom from mask requirements, as The Daily Wire reported. 

“Simply relying on outdated CDC guidance when the experience has completely undercut that is not really a reasonable thing to do at this point,” DeSantis said in a Tuesday video on Twitter.

“A 9 to 5 job should not be a N-95 job,” the governor said.

DeSantis specifically discussed workers in service and hospitality sectors. 

“Every time I go to these places, I’ll be in these big events and you have all these people having such a good time and the poor servers are forced to mask and I will ask them, ‘Are you allowed to take the mask off?’ They say not yet,” he shared.

“They’re all waiting for it. They all want to be liberated. They want to be treated normally,” DeSantis added.

The video came after a press release last week from DeSantis and Florida’s Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo that announced significant changes to the state’s COVID-19 guidance “including pushing back on unscientific corporate masking, reducing isolation for all Floridians including those in schools and daycares, and recommending that physicians should exercise their individual clinical judgment and expertise based on their patients’ needs and preferences.”

“People want to live freely in Florida, without corporate masking creating a two-tier society and without overbearing isolation for children,” DeSantis said in the statement. “We are empowering health care practitioners to follow science, not Fauci’s status quo.”

Ladapo also issued a statement about the new changes in Florida.

“The State of Florida has widespread natural and vaccine-induced immunity,” Ladapo also said. “Evidence suggests that most secondary transmission occurs early on. Our state will continue to make decisions for Floridians rooted in sound science, not fear, whether they are working or in school.”

“This guidance makes clear that all employees at a corporation should not be forced to wear a mask while at work. The guidance recognizes that there are millions of employees in Florida working in industries from hospitality to manufacturing to banking who for no reason whatsoever have been forced to wear a mask at work,” the statement said.

The Daily Wire added, “In addition, childcare centers and schools are now only required to isolate students for five days for those who test positive for COVID-19. The same guidelines will apply to state workers.”

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