Gelber made the remarks during an interview with CNN’s Jim Sciutto. The Democratic mayor said that the Republican governor had ignored credible science about the virus in favor of “a convenient ideology” that allows him to ignore public health restrictions shown to reduce the spread of infection, like mandating the wearing of face masks.

“He’s sort of adopted an ideology, a convenient ideology, but not one grounded in science,” Gelber said. “He’s been receiving advice from these fringe scientists and doctors who pursue the wrong kinds theories on how to deal with this and the result is we have virus spread throughout our state.”

“He’s wrong and he just won’t change direction, to the detriment of our residents, frankly,” added Gelber.

The mayor said that DeSantis was taking advice from Dr. Scott Atlas, President Donald Trump’s former pandemic adviser who resigned on Monday while wishing the incoming Biden administration “all best,” along with other physicians who advocate a “fringe herd immunity” strategy.

COVID-19 research has led most medical experts and epidemiologists to conclude that herd immunity may not be achievable by allowing infections to spread uncontained, while pursuing the strategy before a vaccine is widely available would likely result in millions of unnecessary deaths.

Gelber said the he had been forced to resort to “workarounds” to contain the virus in Miami Beach due to DeSantis fully opening the economy, but refusing to issue a mask mandate and blocking local restrictions even as cases surged out of control in the state, calling the governor’s actions “the worst of all worlds.”

“What Governor DeSantis is doing is not simply not helping us, he’s doing the opposite,” Gelber said. “He’s actually telling people they don’t need to wear masks. I get emails every day, angry emails from people saying ‘why don’t you listen to the governor? Why are you forcing us to wear masks? Why don’t you be quiet?’ And that’s just dangerous, frankly.”

“All of the credible science says that mask usage is the best way to protect yourself,” he added. “And, in fact, to open up the economy safely.”

When asked about strategies for distributing COVID-19 vaccines that are expected to released soon, the mayor said that he had faith in experienced vaccine experts who “do this for a living day in and day out” and expected that DeSantis would also follow their expertise in formulating and executing an effective plan.

Florida became the third state to surpass 1 million COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, joining Texas and California. The state reported an additional 8,632 cases, bringing total cases to 1,008,166. There are currently 55,197 Floridians hospitalized with the virus, while 18,679 have died since the pandemic began.

Newsweek reached out to the office of DeSantis for comment.