Days after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) wore an enormous gas mask during a House floor vote on an emergency funding package for the coronavirus response, he announced that a resident in his northwestern Florida district had died of covid-19.
Gaetz said in a statement that he was “extremely saddened to learn of the first fatality in our district,” a resident who lived in Santa Rosa County.
His message followed the Florida Department of Health’s announcement late Friday that two residents had died of the disease, pushing the U.S. death toll to 17 as of that night.
In addition to the patient in Santa Rosa who had recently traveled internationally, the second coronavirus-related death was a Lee County resident in their 70s who had recently traveled abroad.
Florida health officials additionally reported two new presumptive positive coronavirus cases, both in Broward County.
One is a 75-year-old male and the other a 65-year-old male, according to the health department. Both are in isolation.
Gaetz said in his statement that the deceased patient from his district had been quarantined shortly after showing symptoms and that no further cases were known in the district at the time.
Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.), one of the most senior House members, rebuked the 37-year-old congressman for his Wednesday display of the over-the-top gas mask.
Rush said via Twitter that Gaetz was “making light of an epidemic that has killed 14 Americans.”
He contrasted how the congressman’s behavior went unchecked to his own removal from the House floor in 2012 when he wore a hoodie to protest racial profiling in the wake of the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida.
In 2012, I wore a hoodie on the House Floor to make a statement about the deadly consequences of racial profiling. On Wednesday, @RepMattGaetz wore a gas mask in the chamber, making light of an epidemic that has killed 14 Americans.
Guess which one of us was forcibly removed. pic.twitter.com/nh2LHPeIFW
— Bobby L. Rush (@RepBobbyRush) March 6, 2020
Gaetz’s office did not provide additional comment Saturday when asked to respond to Rush’s criticism but cited his Friday statement offering condolences for the deceased patient.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the U.S. surgeon general, urged the public not to wear masks if they aren’t sick as doing so creates unnecessary panic and reduces the supply for those, like health-care workers, who do need them.