Gov. DeSantis says COVID-19 ‘stabilized’ in Florida, so its travelers should not be quarantined
Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks after signing the $92.2 billion 2020-21 budget Monday during a news conference at the Capitol in Tallahassee. DeSantis vetoed more than $1 billion from the spending plan sent to him by the legislature. COLIN HACKLEY PHOTO

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Governor continues to be optimistic about virus fight, skeptics be damned.

Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to face questions about other regions quarantining travelers from Florida and other virus hotspots over COVID-19 concerns.

The latest 14-day quarantine will be imposed by Chicago. DeSantis’ take is that while they have the right to restrict arrivals from Florida, he personally would not do that himself, and that Florida has “stabilized” at its current rates of infection.

“They can do what they want. I would not do that if I were them,” the Governor told reporters in the Villages on Monday.

The travel order from Chicago as well as Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York is predicated on the state having higher than a 10% positive testing rate.

After saying that the state is “doing all we can do,” citing COVID-19 only nursing homes, the Governor said he “went through the numbers.”

“I want us to be in May or in early June, when we were at three or four percent,” DeSantis said, noting that in Central Florida, some days saw positivity rates below 2%.

“That’s basically a false positive rate. There may have been nobody who was actually infected,” he continued, saying “we want to get back to that for sure.”

Florida is “very diverse,” DeSantis added, as if not having an “even epidemic” was a reason not to impose a statewide quarantine.

The Governor noted that he did not want to quarantine travelers from the New York tri-state area earlier this year, decrying having gotten a “lot of blowback” from people “privately” about that move.

For the Governor, who weeks back was supposedly due an “apology” from a media who hadn’t noticed he’d won the war against coronavirus, Monday’s adverse action continues a narrative of Florida as a viral hotspot.

The state continues to add cases at a healthy clip, with more than 6,300 cases recorded Sunday, pushing the state over 206,000 total. On Sunday, a full 15% of test results came back positive.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has written for FloridaPolitics.com since 2014. He is based in Northeast Florida. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


6 comments

  • S.B. Anthony

    July 6, 2020 at 3:28 pm

    “Stabilized” is an outright lie. The confirmed cases and positivity rates are sky rocketing in Florida. How stupid does this governor think we are?

    • NO MORE REPUBLICANS !!!

      July 6, 2020 at 3:39 pm

      The question actually is: “How stupid is this governor?”

    • Sonja Fitch

      July 6, 2020 at 5:46 pm

      Duffus Desantis take a shower and wash your hair! Get some clothes that fit you! You ain’t fooling us you working that much!

  • NO MORE REPUBLICANS !!!

    July 6, 2020 at 3:34 pm

    Hard to believe this arse actually got accepted to Yale and Harvard – let alone that he actually graduated from both! With him and Trump – “Stupid is as stupid says!” – “Stupid is as stupid does!” Get ’em both the hell outta here!

  • BlueHeron

    July 6, 2020 at 11:19 pm

    Who does he think he’s kidding? Must be the multitudes of residents who could care less about covid. No big deal. Nothing to see here.
    He is either unwilling or unable to deal with any of this. Me thinks it’s the former, not the latter. He’s seen the #’s. The real #’s or the cooked #’s? Doesn’t matter. Even a “regular” person like me can see that things are not good. It’s not rocket science.

    He’s going through the motions. Doesn’t give a damn, cooks the books, lies, is petulant, snarky and condescending. He clutches his pearls in horror every time the press asks him questions.

    He’s on FOX often enough and is really far up Trump’s a$$. He’s being a good little soldier. All at the expense of the residents of Florida.

  • Peter Fallon

    July 11, 2020 at 8:08 am

    If DeSantis thinks FL is an example of Corona stabilized why does he have a quarantine order on citizens coming from NYS where Corona is stabilized?

Comments are closed.


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