“The Delta variant is spreading wildly around the country, particularly among the unvaccinated, with the U.S. averaging around 100,000 new infections a day,” John Oliver explained Sunday night. “And alarmingly, roughly 15 percent of new cases are children, with over 260 kids being newly hospitalized each day. And all of this means that many hospitals are yet again being stretched to a breaking point, particularly in certain parts of the country, with Florida and Texas alone accounting for 40 percent of new hospitalizations.”
With that, the comedian kicked off the latest edition of his hit HBO show Last Week Tonight. He then threw to footage of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “underwhelming” response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis in the state.
DeSantis declared, “It’s airborne, and it’s aerosolized, and so we just have to understand that when that’s happening, these waves are something that you have to deal with.”
“Wow. The world changes so quickly, doesn’t it?” asked Oliver, in jest. “If you told me just a few years ago that Florida’s Republican governor would respond to a deadly threat with, ‘These waves are just something you have to deal with,’ I would assume they were talking about Miami sinking into a warming ocean, not a totally different, totally self-induced crisis.”
“And it’s pretty tough to hear this cut-rate Coach Taylor saying ‘Just deal with it’ when he seems to be very much not doing that,” Oliver continued. “Just a few weeks ago, DeSantis issued an order banning school mask mandates, making Florida one of at least seven states now prohibiting schools from imposing them. And school board meetings around the country have seen fiery exchanges about this issue.”
In North Carolina, per a video Oliver played, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), who enjoys punching trees, going on Hitler-centric vacations, and (allegedly) attacking college girls in his car, shouted during a school board meeting, “The greatest threat to our children today does not come from COVID-19. It comes from woke liberal government officials like you who think they are all-knowing and all-wise.”
Oliver cracked, “I would say I was surprised by that, but this is a man who once posted this video of himself beating up a tree, so he clearly loves picking useless fights against imaginary opponents where he comes out looking like a complete asshole.”
