Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has vowed not to lock down the state again despite the widespread uptick in coronavirus cases that has spurred multiple states across the country to tighten restrictions on residents and businesses.
“The governor will not lockdown and hurt families who can’t afford to shelter in place for 6 weeks. Especially not for a virus that has a 99.8% survival rate,” a spokesperson for Mr. DeSantis told CBS 12 News Monday. “One area of concern is Assisted Living Facilities. Since those over 70 face the greatest threat from [COVID-19,] the governor is monitoring those numbers daily and is prepared to move therapeutic and prophylactic assets to those facilities as needed.”
The statement comes after Florida reported more than 10,000 positive coronavirus cases on Sunday, a number the state hasn’t seen since the summer surge.
“Today we are back down to 4,500 [cases] and a 7.3% positivity rate,” the governor’s spokesperson said. “We believe yesterday’s high number was due to a large submission file and skewed the numbers for that day.”
Mr. DeSantis reluctantly shut down the state for one month in April but he has largely left mitigation efforts up to mayors and individual counties, and he has so far resisted instituting a state-wide mask mandate.
Meanwhile, dozens of mayors and governors across the country are reinstituting stay-at-home orders, curfews and mandates after seeing a steady increase in COVID-19 cases.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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