evidence: At Iowa fairgrounds, in glossy cable news interviews, and during the first debate stage of the 2024 Republican primary race, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has made his state’s COVID-19 response central to his U.S. presidential campaign. [...] The above figure, based on data from The Lancet study, presents the overall use of mandates across the fifty states. Florida adopted more mandates than most states—even Democratic-leaning ones—early but never reimposed them once lifted. DeSantis expanded testing early, and also isolated and prohibited visitors to COVID patients in nursing homes, avoiding mistakes that some other states had made. In the uncertain early weeks of the pandemic, DeSantis closed public schools and kept them closed for the rest of that academic year. He ordered Floridians to stay at home and closed nonessential business on March 29, 2020, urging Floridians to stay "spiritually together, but to remain socially distant." [...] DeSantis was at Tampa Bay Hospital to cheer on the first COVID-19 vaccine supplies when they arrived in Florida and when the first dose was administered to a frontline health worker. Florida prioritized individuals older than sixty-five for early doses, even to a greater extent than CDC guidelines recommended. For a time, Florida led the nation with its Seniors First campaign to vaccinate this vulnerable age cohort. When looking at the sixty-five-plus population, Florida had similar, and sometimes faster, ramp-up of coverage of the initial two-dose regimen than in California and New York, according to CDC data.