If the latest surge overwhelms hospitals, leaving doctors and nurses unable to properly care for the younger, almost entirely unvaccinated people packing emergency rooms and intensive care units, Mr. DeSantis’s perch as a Republican Party front-runner with higher aspirations could be in serious trouble.

If, however, Florida comes through another virus peak with both its hospital system and economy intact, Mr. DeSantis’s game of chicken with the deadly pandemic could become a model for how to coexist with a virus that is unlikely to ever fully vanish…

In short, Mr. DeSantis said, life will go on even as the pandemic does, too.

“We knew this is something that you’re going to have to live with,” Mr. DeSantis said on Friday, articulating a sentiment that many public officials are beginning to express, publicly and privately, as the pandemic powers through its second summer.