New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday his state was shipping supplies of the antiviral drug remdesivir to Florida, a day after Gov. Ron DeSantis said he wasn’t looking for help from the Empire State as his state deals with a resurgence of coronavirus cases.
“With continued discipline of wearing masks and social distancing, along with a phased, data-driven reopening, New York’s numbers have remained low and steady,” Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Today, on behalf of all New Yorkers, we will deploy Remdesivir to help Florida care for patients as it waits for further supply from the federal government.”
Mr. Cuomo’s office said the supply would allow Florida to care for 280 COVID-19 patients as the state wait for a federal shipment and that it would get them through Sunday.
New York is still first in the country with more than 400,000 positive cases and more than 31,000 deaths among its nearly 20 million residents.
But cases have dropped off significantly in recent weeks while Florida’s case numbers have surged.
Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, said Thursday his state wasn’t looking for help from New York.
“They’re not helping us,” Mr. DeSantis said. “I think someone had reached out to our office about ventilators. We’ve got 6,000 ventilators just sitting idle, so we don’t necessarily need it.”
He also took an indirect shot at Mr. Cuomo for how New York has handled the outbreak in nursing homes.
“We prohibited sick nursing home residents from being discharged back into the facilities — a lot of the other states did the opposite and I think the results were better in Florida,” he said.
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are now requiring people traveling from Florida and more than a dozen other states to self-quarantine for 14 days.
Mr. DeSantis had announced a similar quarantine for people traveling from the tri-state area to Florida in March.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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