GIANNO CALDWELL: Florida needs Byron Donalds to protect the DeSantis legacy

When COVID hit in March 2020, I was living in Los Angeles.

What I saw there changed the course of my life.

It became clear almost immediately that local officials in California weren't following the science.

They were following the politics.

Every decision, every mandate, every shutdown got filtered through one lens: how do we use this crisis to fight back against Trump and Republicans? Californians paid for that calculation.

Businesses shuttered.

Kids lost years of school.

Families lost everything they'd built.

I watched it happen in real time.

Florida went a different way.

Governor Ron DeSantis stood firm.

While Dr.

Anthony Fauci pushed school closures, vaccine mandates, and business lockdowns, DeSantis said no.

He signed executive orders and legislation suspending every local COVID mandate on Florida 's citizens and businesses, and put into state law the presumption that schools stay open for in-person instruction.