'Reckless Ron': Airplane banner slamming Florida Gov. DeSantis flies in downtown Tampa before Lightning game

While hockey fans gathered Thursday night at Tampa's Amalie Arena for the Lightning's Game 6 matchup with Toronto, advocacy groups took to the sky to remind everyone that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' anti-mask, anti-vaccine policies are "reckless."

At around 5 p.m. an airplane from the groups For Our Future and Coronavirus War Room could be seen in downtown Tampa. Behind it was a banner that read  "Reckless Ron," a reminder of the millions of lives lost due to COVID-19, says a press release.

"Between downplaying vaccinations and boosters, promoting ineffective antibody treatments, and appointing a conspiracy theorist to be Florida’s Surgeon General, Ron DeSantis has seemed to be on the side of COVID," read the press release. " While DeSantis continues to rake in cash for spreading hatred, the people of Florida have been left to fend for themselves."

Notably, the banner flew the same day President Joe Biden ordered the nation's federal flags to fly at half-mast to honor the nearly 1 million people in the U.S. who died from COVID-19.

Roughly 74,000 of those deaths were from Florida.

“Over the past two years, Ron DeSantis has sabotaged any effort to mitigate the effects of COVID-19, and now we’ve crossed a somber milestone of a million deaths from the reckless actions of so-called leaders like Ron," said Florida Coronavirus War Room Director Ashley Bauman in a statement. "From spreading misinformation, undermining health experts, and promoting vaccine hesitancy, even going so far as to recommend children not be vaccinated, DeSantis has seemed determined to use any tool at his disposal to make sure the pandemic lasts as long as possible in order to score political points.”