DeSantis keeps fighting vaccine passports for cruises. We’re the ones who’ll pay | Editorial

Gov. Ron DeSantis is once again planning to go to court — on our dime — to defend the dangerous notion that cruise ships should be allowed to accept passengers without either requiring COVID vaccines or following a series of steps designed to provide safety to their customers and crew.

And he’s doing it as Florida distinguishes itself once again as one of the top sources of new COVID infections in the country. It’s a bad look, governor.

Maybe DeSantis has been able to blot out those horrible days in 2020 when cruise ships with infected passengers were turned away from ports around the world as those on board suffered and died. Well, we haven’t.

Even more maddening: Cruise lines such as Norwegian actually agree with the rules, set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings filed a federal lawsuit last week in the Southern District of Florida challenging the constitutionality of a law pushed by DeSantis blocks cruise lines from requiring passengers to show proof of vaccination — vaccine passports — before boarding ships.

That’s the third-largest cruise operator in the world coming out against the DeSantis law. In court filings, the company called its ability to require proof of vaccination from passengers “a matter of life and death,” as the Miami Herald reported. That would give most people pause. But not DeSantis.

Of course, more than 38,000 Floridians have already died of COVID on his watch.

In the courts

The latest round of legalities came after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Saturday temporarily blocked a previous court ruling that would have lifted the CDC rules. DeSantis said Monday during a press conference in Central Florida that the state will likely ask the appeals court to lift the stay. He even mentioned taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

We understand that the cruise lines need to get back to work, and it’s a multibillion-dollar industry. The governor — campaigning for re-election and, maybe, the White House — has insisted that the CDC rules discriminate against those who can’t get the vaccine or choose not to.

But that argument is weak and, worse, harmful. Miami-Dade County had the second-highest rate of new COVID cases in the country per 100,000 people last week, behind only Los Angeles, according to the CDC. That’s in spite of our 73 percent vaccination rate for people 12 and over.

And cruise ships stop at foreign ports, increasing the possibility of introducing more COVID variants into the United States when ships return.

“I think most courts at this point have had their limit of the CDC issuing these dictates without a firm statutory basis,” DeSantis said Monday, according to the News Service of Florida. “I am confident we’d win on the merits at the full 11th circuit, and obviously I am confident we would win at the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The governor must have a funny definition of winning if it involves bringing more COVID to Florida. As for the CDC, well, it doesn’t sound to us as though the agency is the one issuing the dictates here.

This story was originally published July 19, 2021 at 5:49 PM.