Is running on your fighting COVID mitigation a good idea?

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday sought to draw a contrast with the expiring COVID-19 public health emergency, signing a set of "medical freedom" measures into law, including bans on mask and vaccine mandates, and new conscience protections for health providers.

Why it matters: The potential 2024 presidential contender, has made medical freedom a key issue, casting aspersions on tools aimed at stopping COVID, such as dubbing the vaccines "mRNA jabs."

"A lot of people were harmed by what the federal government did and a lot of states did," DeSantis said during an event in Destin, Florida on Thursday, the Pensacola News Journal wrote. "Today there are still physicians out there trying to jab babies with mRNA shots."

Between the lines: The moves are part of a COVID-inspired appeal to libertarian sensibilities and personal choice that casts public health mandates as failed attempts that trampled on individual rights.

That rallying cry has proved particularly potent among many conservatives in the wake of the COVID pandemic, even as public health experts warn of the ongoing danger of misinformation it sows.

Details: The legislation blocks businesses or government entities from requiring vaccines or proof of post-infection recovery from COVID-19, as well as testing or mask-wearing, to gain entry or access services.

It also creates protections for prescribing alternative treatments and for those who opt out of providing health services due to conscience-based objections, as well as blocks "gain-of-function" research.

And it echoes religious conscience protections pushed by then-President Trump's administration to allow health care workers to refuse to provide services like abortion, sterilization or assisted suicide against the recommendations of top medical groups. Those protections were later blocked by a judge.

America is moving on from Covid-19. Ron DeSantis can’t stop talking about it.

With the Covid-triggered national health emergency set to expire Thursday, DeSantis has been crisscrossing the country touting his handling of the virus. DeSantis criticized “lockdown politicians” during a visit to California and called Florida a “refuge of sanity” amid pandemic closures when he was in South Carolina last month. At Liberty University in Virginia two weeks ago, the governor said he bucked the political and medical establishment to keep Florida open.

The governor this year pressed Republicans in the Legislature to pass a series of Covid-19-related bills, including measures that permanently ban mask mandates in schools and prohibit businesses from firing employees who don’t get vaccinated.

DeSantis claims the new proposals are meant to ward off possible future mandates from the Biden administration, saying at a press conference last week in Florida that “they really just wanted to control your behavior.”

It’s no surprise DeSantis is spotlighting his pandemic-era record. The governor built his national reputation on defying Covid-19 restrictions, earning heaps of praise from conservatives and appearing regularly on Fox News. He championed in-person learning and kept schools open while banning mask requirements for Florida’s nearly 3 million public K-12 students. He waged high-profile fights with the Biden administration over vaccine requirements for workers and last year his administration even threatened the Special Olympics with a $27.5 million fine because the organization wanted to require its athletes to be vaccinated at an Orlando competition.

Now the governor will find out if he can sustain that strategy as he prepares to campaign more than three years after the pandemic began. Covid gives DeSantis an opening to attack former President Donald Trump, whose administration was responsible for the federal government’s early response. DeSantis chided Trump — without saying his name — during a Utah GOP meeting in April, saying that real leaders “don’t subcontract out their leadership to health bureaucrats like Dr. Fauci.

Erin Perrine, spokesperson for Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting DeSantis, was much more blunt recently when she told NewsMax: “You saw President Trump stand with Anthony Fauci and have him try to force Florida into lockdowns. Governor DeSantis stood against that.”

Recent polling shows Americans have mixed feelings about whether Covid is actually over. But for many, quarantines, masking on airplanes and virtual learning for kids are a thing of the past.

One indicator of the current mood is boosters and vaccinations. In Florida, which has the second highest population of people aged 65 and over in the country, the number of people getting booster shots has plummeted. About 8,000 people received Covid-19 booster shots during the last week of April, according to data from the Florida Department of Health. During that same time last year, about 47,000 people got the jab.

A snapshot of the virus in Florida, however, shows a more complicated picture. Florida had more than 87,000 Covid-related deaths since the first cases of Covid appeared in March 2020 and its death rate was 13 highest in the nation, according to data from the New York Times. But according to that data, it had a lower death rate than New York and New Jersey, two Democrat-led states that imposed some mask and vaccine mandates.

DeSantis was also an early proponent of vaccinating the elderly and prioritized seniors over young, healthy workers in December 2020. But his stance eventually changed, and at a press conference in 2021 he stood next to people who were staunchly anti-vaccine, including one who falsely said the shot “changes your RNA.” DeSantis last December asked the state Supreme Court to impanel a grand jury to investigate Covid vaccines and the drug companies that manufacture them.