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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis answers a question during a roundtable meeting in August. | Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court blocked Renatha Francis’ appointment to the state’s high court Friday, ruling her ineligible for the job, and halting Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ pick of the second Black woman to ever serve on the panel.
The decision punctuates a monthslong legal fight infused with racial politics and unusual alliances, and appears likely to force the Republican governor to select a different judge to sit on the court.
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DeSantis tapped Francis in May to fill one of two vacancies, and he went on to highlight the Palm Beach County judge, a Black woman born in Jamaica, as evidence of his commitment to adding diversity to the court.
But Francis, who would have been the only sitting Black justice, quickly came under scrutiny because she had not been a member of the Florida Bar for 10 years, a requirement in the state constitution. A lawsuit was filed by state Rep. Geraldine Thompson (D-Orlando) challenging the Francis pick, setting up the multi-layered political drama and Friday’s eventual rejection, which admonished the governor over his legal arguments.
The unanimous decision was an unambiguous smackdown of a Republican governor by a court that has been widely hailed as conservative-leaning. Justice John Couriel recused himself from the case. DeSantis sought to sway the justices by arguing that Francis’ pick was an “announcement” and not a formal appointment, but that logic did not persuade the court.
“Either approach leads to the same conclusion: the Governor has not complied with the constitution’s clear commands,” the opinion stated.
Adding to the intrigue of the ruling, which poked a huge hole in DeSantis’ legal argument, was who crafted the argument. The ruling was penned by Justice Carlos Muñiz, a DeSantis appointee to the court who is also on President Donald Trump’s shortlist of potential future U.S. Supreme Court picks.
The lawsuit was filed in July, but the political mad scramble did not kick off until after a Tuesday ruling where the court gave DeSantis one day to convince them they should not order him to pick a new justice.
DeSantis also held a press conference Wednesday that allied the governor with a handful of Broward County Democrats, the political equivalent of dogs and cats coming together. That included Haiti-born House Democrat Dotie Joseph, who supported Francis becoming the first Caribbean-born justice on the Florida Supreme Court. She tried to assuage the concerns of fellow Democrats by arguing Francis was not cut from the mold of Clarence Thomas, the conservative Black jurist on the U.S. Supreme Court.
“My colleagues and I on the Florida Legislative Black Caucus determined that she is not a Clarence Thomas,” Joseph said. “While she may be conservative and a member of the Federalist Society, none of those things in and of themselves disqualify Judge Francis from deserving our support or stamp of approval.”
“All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk,” Joseph added of Thomas.
One day later, Thompson hit back, unloading on DeSantis for what she said was a disingenuous effort to paint critics opposed to the Francis pick on constitutional grounds as opposing a Black woman being appointed to the court.
“This is one of the worst and most egregious examples of racial tokenism that I have seen in my life,” Thompson told reporters.
She noted that there were six constitutionally qualified black judges who applied for the two vacancies on the Florida Supreme Court, but Francis was the only one forwarded to DeSantis by the Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission, which is tasked with recommended a slate of judges the governor must pick from. Only Francis made the final cut.
“They could have selected more [black judges],” Thompson told POLITICO on Friday. “They didn’t.”
The court also addressed critics who believe the 10-year bar membership provision in the Florida constitution is arbitrary and should not be a reason to toss a Florida Supreme Court appointee. To underscore that point, they employed the words of a conservative legal icon: the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
“To some, enforcing rules like these might seem needlessly formalistic when the result is to preclude the appointment of an otherwise qualified candidate,” the opinion stated. “But ‘formalism,’ as Justice Scalia observed, ‘is what makes a government a government of laws and not of men.’”
DeSantis was a member of Congress in 2016 when Scalia died. He took to the House floor to memorialize the legal giant, calling him “one of the all-time greats in American law.”
The court’s Friday ruling went on to needle the Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission, the body tasked with crafting a slate of judges for the governor to pick from.
It’s one of the most powerful panels in the state. It is chaired by prominent insurance lobbyist and GOP donor Fred Karlinsky, and includes among its members Daniel Nordby, a former general counsel to Gov. Rick Scott, Jesse Panuccio, who served both in the Scott administration and in the No. 3 post in President Donald Trump’s Justice Department.
“The JNC itself made the decisions to nominate a constitutionally ineligible candidate, and it is responsible for the consequences of that decision,” the justice wrote.
The court has given DeSantis until noon on Monday to pick one of the seven other judges on the slate put forward by the commission.
None of the remaining candidates are Black.
The ascendant conservative jurist knee-capping the legal defense of the governor who appointed him sparked a full court press messaging effort from DeSantis and his allies, who sought to amplify the historic nature of putting someone with Francis’ heritage on the state’s highest court.
“@GovRonDeSantis came out in support of women, immigrants and Black Florida residents like Jamaican American Judge Renatha Francis who is his pick for the @FlCourts,” tweeted Helen Aguirre Ferré, the Florida GOP executive director who until recently was DeSantis’ communication director, on Wednesday.
“[Thompson] Should be ashamed to play politics & deny the FL Supreme Court the only Black female justice,” she added.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis attends an event on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo
The ascent to phase two is a major step for the state’s two highest-populated counties, which were both hit hard by Covid-19.
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis has given Miami-Dade and Broward counties the green light to move into phase two of reopening businesses and schools during the coronavirus pandemic, paving the way for in-person classes to resume in what have been the state’s hottest spots for Covid-19.
The decision brings Florida closer to having students back in schools in every county, a major priority for the Republican governor. Reopening schools has been a sticking point for DeSantis as Florida continues to rebuild its economy from the havoc caused by the coronavirus.
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“The most significant aspect of [phase two] is it really clears the pathway for in-person instruction to resume,” DeSantis said Friday.
The ascent to phase two is a major step for the state’s two highest-populated counties, which were both hit hard by Covid-19. Miami-Dade also struggled to coordinate with the state on tracing infections in late July as the rate of tests that came back positive for the virus were around 20 percent.
Miami-Dade’s rate has since plummeted to 5.63 percent as of Thursday. The rate in Broward was 3.73 percent, which is lower than the statewide 5.53 percent, according to a state Department of Health report.
“Now the contract tracing is better — more robust than in the past,” said Carlos Giménez, mayor of Miami-Dade County. “And that’s why we’ll be able to open up more businesses.”
Giménez said that his county will assemble a list of businesses that will be allowed to open at half-capacity.
While some outdoor businesses like zoos will be clear to open Monday, a decision on when to usher thousands of students back to campuses across Miami has yet to be made.
Superintendent Alberto Carvalho was optimistic schools would reopen ahead of the original schedule on Oct. 5, noting that the local school board is meeting next week over the issue. Miami-Dade has been plagued with a rough start to the school year, which has included cyberattacks that devastated distance learning and a board vote to scrap the county’s online learning platform.
Joining the rest of Florida in phase two of reopening “lifts a huge roadblock” for the school district, Carvalho said Friday.
“We are extremely encouraged by the downward trends we have observed,” he added.
Broward and Miami-Dade are going into phase two less than a day after Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary Halsey Beshears announced that bars and nightclubs will be able to reopen Monday at 50 percent capacity.
Still, Giménez said Miami-Dade watering holes will remain closed for now.
“We’re still not out of the woods yet, but we’re close,” Gimenez said.
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]]>“We succeeded and people just don’t want to recognize it,” he blu…
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]]>The post DeSantis approval on handling of coronavirus plunges: poll | TheHill appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
Ronald Dion DeSantisCalifornia, Florida report record numbers of daily deaths DeSantis approval on handling of coronavirus plunges: poll Poll: Biden leads Trump by 6 points in Florida MORE’s (R) approval on his handling of the coronavirus has fallen by double digits since April, when he had 50 percent approval, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday.
Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they approve of the governor’s handling of the virus in the state, while 57 percent said they disapprove. In April, 50 percent of respondents approved, while 41 percent disapproved.
The survey also found 61 percent of respondents believed Florida’s reopening process, one of the earliest in the country, was premature, compared to 31 percent who said it was “at about the right pace” and 6 percent who said it was too slow.
Voters are statistically tied on whether DeSantis should issue a statewide stay-a-home order amid the surge in cases, with 49 percent saying yes and 48 percent saying he should not.
A large majority of voters also oppose resuming normal schooling in the fall, with 62 percent saying it would be dangerous to resume elementary, middle and high school in the fall versus 33 percent who believe it would be safe. Fifty-seven percent believe it would be unsafe for in-person college classes to resume versus 37 percent who say it would be safe.
Voters also disapprove of DeSantis’s handling of school reopenings by a smaller margin, according to the poll. Fifty-six percent disapprove of his handling of the issue while 37 percent approve. DeSantis has echoed President Trump
Donald John TrumpPelosi says Trump decision to roll back fair housing rule is a ‘betrayal of our nation’s founding values’ Trump says he would consider pardons for those implicated in Mueller investigation Fauci says that he and his family have experienced ‘serious threats’ during pandemic MORE in calling for a full return to in-person classes in the fall.
“DeSantis’ commitment to putting students in classrooms in the fall is a non-starter with voters. From elementary school kids to collegians, Floridians are saying ‘forget it,’ ” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said in a statement.
Florida reached its single-day record for deaths from the virus Thursday, with 173 new deaths, as well as 10,250 new cases of the virus.
The poll surveyed 924 registered Florida voters July 16-20. It has a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.
The Hill has reached out to DeSantis’s office for comment.
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President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Gov. Ron DeSantis in the Oval Office of the White House. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo
The Republican governor aligned with Trump’s philosophy about fully opening schools and not mandating masks but is now getting flack.
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis has followed President Donald Trump’s lead for months while he waged a local battle against the coronavirus in Florida. That loyalty was rewarded with scorn from the White House this week as scrutiny on the state’s handling of Covid-19 ratchets up in the final months of the presidential campaign.
Twice in two days, Trump and his aides have put the squeeze on DeSantis, a fellow Republican.
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“Florida is in a little tough, or a big tough, position,” Trump told reporters this week.
Now, DeSantis, a Trump ally, is painted into a corner: He needs to deliver the must-win battleground for the president — something the state’s rising cases and death rate are chipping away at — while staying in Trump’s good graces as his once-sky-high approval ratings sink. Without Trump’s endorsement in the 2018 GOP primary, DeSantis almost certainly wouldn’t have been elected.
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway followed the president’s blunt assessment with her own criticism on Wednesday of states that have become hotspots, saying some businesses — specifically nightlife — opened too soon and contributed to the surge in infections.
“They opened up some of the industries too quickly, like bars,” she said to reporters. “The governors wanted complete latitude over when they would open their states, they pushed back heavily … Republicans and Democrats, when it was falsely rumored that the president was going to be in charge of opening the states.”
Conway didn’t call out Florida directly, but her comments clearly included the state, which reopened bars to partial capacity in early June and DeSantis soon derided as fostering “dance party USA.” On Tuesday, Florida reported 9,752 new cases, and a 10.5 percent positivity rate.
DeSantis, now and from the beginning, has cast the state’s response in the most positive light, even as cases increase, the positivity rate hits double digits, and health care providers begin to feel the strain. The daily death toll has also gone up. His administration has also lined up with Trump’s call to fully open public schools.
As Trump used the White House briefing room to turn the nation’s focus on Florida on Monday, DeSantis was in Tallahassee talking about hospitals. He held an upbeat briefing with medical officials and in a tweet highlighted that his administration had delivered 50,000 vials of remdesivir, a promising coronavirus treatment, to state hospitals.
DeSantis spokesperson Meredith Beatrice deflected critiques lobbed at the governor on Wednesday, saying he’s been “driven by data and science” and took early action.
“Florida remains poised to make a strong recovery and will continue to collaborate with local leaders on how to re-open in a targeted, measured way,” she said in an email. “The Governor’s actions to protect our most vulnerable in long-term care facilities pre-dated any federal guidance to states, and his actions have been acknowledged as having saved lives.”
As the coronavirus outbreak spread this spring and summer, Trump refused to order states to take action. DeSantis has mirrored the president’s moves and has said openly that some of his decisions were based on clear White House signals, such as dismissing the idea of mandating masks — an idea he said was unenforceable.
As spring break vacationers descended on Florida and the virus spread, DeSantis refused to issue a statewide stay-at-home order, breaking with dozens of other governors.
He relented on April 1 after Trump himself thawed to state shutdown orders, giving DeSantis political cover to move forward.
“It is a very serious situation,” DeSantis said at the time. “When you see the president up there and his demeanor the last couple of days, that’s not necessarily how he always is.”
Conway on Wednesday noted that Trump had criticized Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, in late April for opening some businesses too quickly. Just the previous week, the president had urged states to “liberate” their people from lockdowns. But, Conway said, Trump’s critique of Kemp showed he hadn’t aggressively pushed to reopen the economy.
Trump “pushed back on the governor of Georgia, a Republican, who he, frankly, helped get elected. He pushed back on him early,” Conway said. “He said publicly … ‘I think it’s a little too early. Why don’t we wait just a little bit longer?’”
The anecdote was an outlier, the president’s lone early nod toward restraint amid his otherwise consistent message that the economy needed to reopen.
When DeSantis convened a task force of business leaders in late April to look at reopening stores, parks, gyms and restaurants, it was in line with public messaging from Trump, whose focus at the time was on salvaging the nation’s economy.
“I feel more and more confident that our economy is in the early stages of coming back very strong,” Trump tweeted June 3. “Not everyone agrees with me, but I have little doubt. Watch for September, October, November. Next year will be one of the best ever, and look at the Stock Market NOW!”
That day, Florida entered phase two of its reopening, which allowed gyms to open, expanded restaurant capacity and let bars serve a limited number of customers.
Weeks later, Trump’s focus remained on reopening the country. He held a “reopening of America’s Small Businesses” roundtable on June 18 and made clear where his focus was.
“Under my administration’s strategy to vanquish the virus and restart our economy, small businesses across the national are now safely reopening — all over the nation, they’re reopening at levels like nobody’s seen before,” Trump said at the time.
DeSantis’ administration also followed Trump on reopening schools.
On July 7, when Trump tweeted “SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN FALL,” Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran issued an order requiring schools to reopen at least five days a week starting in August.
The same day the order was made public, Trump applauded DeSantis.
“Gov. DeSantis of Florida is doing a terrific job. He just announced that the schools will be open in the fall,” the president said at a White House press conference. “We are very much going to put pressure on governors and everyone else to open the schools.”
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]]>WASHINGTON — When President Trump first threatened to pull the Republican National Convention out of Charlotte, N.C., Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida started campaigning to bring the event to his state.
But now, as convention planners in Jacksonville seek to raise tens of millions of dollars on an almost impossibly rushed time frame, and in the middle of a raging pandemic, the governor is hindering those efforts, interviews show.
Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, has directed his top fund-raiser, Heather Barker, to tell donors not to give to the convention because of a personal dispute between the governor and Susie Wiles, his former campaign manager who is serving as an informal adviser to the convention planners, according to multiple people familiar with his actions.
Ms. Wiles is a veteran Republican operative who led Mr. Trump’s Florida team in 2016 and who ran Mr. DeSantis’s 2018 campaign for governor. Mr. DeSantis’s relationship with Ms. Wiles soured over his suspicion that she had leaked embarrassing information.
Ms. Wiles, who lives in Jacksonville, rejoined the Trump campaign as an unpaid adviser last week, as the president’s poll numbers in Florida, the country’s biggest battleground state, have slipped and as he has sought to recreate his winning team from four years ago.
Ms. Barker, the top DeSantis fund-raiser, has been explicit with donors in Florida that the governor will not be helpful with rounding up money for the convention because of the involvement of Ms. Wiles, according to the people familiar with the conversations. In a phone call with Mr. Trump about whether to involve Ms. Wiles in the convention planning, Mr. DeSantis also told the president that she was overrated as an operative and that she had little to do with Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory in the state, a person familiar with the discussion said. Mr. Trump did not respond, and changed the subject.
Ms. Wiles declined to comment.
In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Barker denied any attempt to undercut the convention, or to encourage people to withhold support. “We are encouraging all people to participate and we hope it’s a success for the president,” Ms. Barker said. “We just hope everything is a success and want it to be, however they want to structure things and put things together.”
The threat of the governor’s working to undermine convention fund-raising at first caused alarm among members of the Jacksonville host committee, who described efforts to raise money as particularly challenging because of the uncertainty caused by a surge in new coronavirus cases. Florida Republicans are now under pressure to raise tens of millions of dollars in the next five weeks to help finance the three-day convention.
In Florida, and in most states, the governor is the de facto head of the party and its fund-raising efforts. The governor’s threat to hold up resources in his own state was seen by Republican officials as a stunning act of political pettiness by Mr. DeSantis, who had campaigned to bring the convention to Florida, aiming to celebrate a president whose backing elevated him to his current position.
Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. DeSantis, then a congressman and a fixture on Fox News, catapulted him to victory in the 2018 Republican primary. The president, who will travel to Florida for a fund-raiser on Friday, also forcefully backed Mr. DeSantis in the general election in which he scored a narrow victory over Andrew Gillum.
People involved in the fund-raising process said that the money for the convention was mostly coming from national donors, not donors from Florida, and that Mr. DeSantis’s antipathy was having no noticeable impact on fund-raising. The acrimony underscores how in a state where the Republican Party has been in power for so long, the political feuds are no longer with Democrats but with each other.
“Susie was a key player in 2016,” said Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president and his former campaign manager. “We leaned on her to help us win Florida. She remains well-liked and well-respected by the president, who has made clear he wants to ‘get the band back together.’ In addition to that, she was chief of staff, or played a leadership role, for two former mayors of Jacksonville.”
Brian Ballard, the top Republican lobbyist in Florida and one of the party’s major fund-raisers, said Mr. DeSantis had been supportive of the convention. “We have not asked him to take time to make fund-raising calls,” he said. “It wouldn’t be appropriate, with all the health issues, to distract from what he’s working on. Anyone who tries to lay some implications on that is absolutely not aware of the facts.”
The feud between Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Wiles first erupted in September, after a leaked internal memo from the governor’s political committee suggested he could elevate his profile and raise funds for himself by charging lobbyists for access, including $25,000 for a round of golf with him. Mr. DeSantis’s tight inner circle blamed the leak on Ms. Wiles, who led the committee, an accusation people close to Ms. Wiles considered unfounded and unfair.
The governor’s two closest advisers — his wife, Casey DeSantis, and his chief of staff, Shane Strum — had already soured on Ms. Wiles earlier in 2019. Too many operatives for the state’s Republican Party were seen as Wiles loyalists. The DeSantis camp helped push out the party’s executive director and install Peter O’Rourke, Mr. Trump’s former veterans affairs secretary. (Mr. O’Rourke resigned from the party post in March.)
After the leaked memo, Mr. DeSantis, who in his three terms in Congress was known for cycling through political staff members, cut ties with Ms. Wiles and forced her ouster from the Trump campaign, to the alarm of many Florida Republicans who believed she provided proven political chops in the state. Ms. Wiles swooped in to turn around Mr. DeSantis’s 2018 campaign after his previous team made a series of early mistakes. She was also executive director of the governor’s transition.
Ms. Wiles said last fall that she was stepping away from her political roles and lobbying work with Ballard Partners to deal with health issues. Several Republicans predicted at the time that she would return if Mr. Trump’s poll numbers in Florida began to flag. The campaign announced her return on Twitter last week.
Mr. DeSantis pitched Florida hard as an alternative convention host when the state appeared to have the virus under control in May and early June. He had suggested Orlando or Miami as host cities. But Orlando had the problem of an oppositional local mayor, Jerry L. Demings of Orange County. Mr. Demings, a Democrat, is the husband of Representative Val Demings, who is being vetted by the campaign of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as a potential running mate. Miami has been the center of the state’s coronavirus outbreak.
In contrast, Jacksonville had a supportive Republican mayor and an easy permitting structure in a city that owns almost all of its own facilities. For people involved in the convention planning — everyone except Mr. DeSantis — the fact that it was Ms. Wiles’s hometown was also a plus, because she would be available to help the city make the convention arrangements.
Updated July 9, 2020
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]]>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, told “Hannity” Tuesday that the coronavirus fatality rate in his state has remained low despite a surge in the number of confirmed cases because the virus is spreading among younger people who are less at risk of dying.
“The median age of our new cases was in the 50s about a month and a half ago. That has dropped into the 30s,” DeSantis told host Sean Hannity. “We have had days where the median age was 33, and obviously that is important … because [among] people who are healthy and under 40, you know, the death rate of this thing is very close to zero. So, that’s significant.”
Later in the interview, DeSantis told Hannity: “Of all the ages, the age with the most cases now in Florida is 21 … There is no doubt more transmission going on in the community, particularly amongst people in their 20s and 30s.”
MORE THAN 40 FLORIDA ICUs REACH CAPACITY AS COVID CASES SURGE
On Tuesday, Florida reported 7,347 new coronavirus cases, 380 new coronavirus hospitalizations and 63 additional deaths from COVID-19. In all, 213,794 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Florida, about one percent of the state’s population.
“We are prepared for this,” DeSantis emphasized. “Now, we are seeing — in places like Miami, you’re seeing increased traffic in the hospitals, but it’s interesting, I was down there today and they said that they’re actually seeing fewer hospitalizations from people in nursing homes, which is obviously a good sign because that’s where the number one risk of mortality is.”
Despite the surge in cases, the state has confirmed just 3,841 deaths from COVID-19, a fatality rate of 1.8 percent.
“I think that’s a testament to shielding the elderly from infections, particularly the nursing home residents,” explained DeSantis.
“The fact of the matter is, if the case occurs for someone in your 20s, you have radically different fatality prospects than if it’s someone who was in a long-term care facility and they are 80. So we worked hard to shield off the folks who were the most vulnerable, so I think that’s why we have a much lower case fatality rate.”
To that end, DeSantis said, he had designated 12 nursing home facilities that will exclusively house recovering COVID-19 patients who have been discharged from the hospital, so that they do not return to their former facilities and run the risk of infecting those around them.
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“It’s a way to reduce and prevent outbreaks among our very most vulnerable citizens,” the governor explained.
“We are protecting the elderly,” DeSantis emphasized. “We do it every day. We’ve got more work to do, but that’s our goal.”
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]]>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantisRonald Dion DeSantisFlorida governor vetoes budget for online learning amid pandemic DeSantis says Florida ‘not going back’ on reopening as COVID-19 cases surge Florida governor signs abortion bill requiring parental consent for minors MORE (R) said Tuesday that his state is “not going back” on reopening as thousands of new COVID-19 cases continue to be reported every day.
DeSantis told reporters that the state will not follow Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) move to pause reopening, according to Axios.
“We’re not going back, closing things,” he said. “I don’t think that that’s really what’s driving it. People going to a business is not what’s driving it. I think when you see the younger folks — I think a lot of it is more just social interactions, so that’s natural.”
When reporters asked if DeSantis would encourage people to stay home, he said social distancing was being recommended throughout the reopening process and that keeping the elderly and vulnerable safe was Florida’s priority.
“We’re open. We know who we need to protect. Most of the folks in those younger demographics, although we want them to be mindful of what’s going on, are just simply much much less at risk than the folks who are in those older age groups,” he said.
Florida has recorded more than 5,000 new COVID-19 cases per day since last Wednesday. On Saturday, the state documented its highest single-day increase with 9,585 new cases, according to The New York Times’s data.
The state’s health department has counted 152,434 cases and 3,505 deaths in total.
Currently, more than 50 percent of the new infections in the U.S. are in states such as Florida, Texas, California and Arizona with hot spots, according to Axios.
Anthony Fauci
Anthony FauciOvernight Healthcare: Fauci predicts 100,000 virus cases a day if US can’t control outbreaks | Trump officials seek to reassure about safety of potential COVID-19 vaccine DeSantis says Florida ‘not going back’ on reopening as COVID-19 cases surge Trump officials seek to reassure public about safety of a potential coronavirus vaccine MORE, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified in front of a Senate committee Tuesday that states that are “skipping over” the thresholds in the federal reopening guidelines, which he said is leading to the increases in cases.
Florida’s current phase of reopening does not limit how many people can be present in stores and gyms. The state last week ordered bars to stop serving alcohol on-site due to rising coronavirus numbers, though restaurants can continue to serve drinks to seated patrons.
The governor of Texas reimposed the closure of bars and limited restaurants to 50 percent capacity on Friday after the state experienced a jump in cases.
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]]>Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday that the state will not reimpose sweeping shutdowns amid rising coronavirus infections, saying that going back to lockdowns would cripple the economy without saving lives.
DeSantis drew the line even as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last week ordered all bars closed, and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey told residents to stay home and declared that the state was “on pause.” Just last week, after the state recorded 25,000 new infections in just five days and 9,000 in one day alone, Florida once again prohibited the on-premises consumption of alcohol at bars; there are no restrictions on occupancy at gyms or stores.
“We’re not going back, closing things,” DeSantis told reporters. “I don’t think that that really is what’s driving it, people going to a business is not what’s driving it. I think when you see the younger folks, I think a lot of it is more just social interactions, so that’s natural. Obviously, you had a lot of different activities going on in different parts of the state. … So that’s just the reality.”
BIG-CITY DEMS WHO IMPOSED STRICT CORONAVIRUS RESTRICTIONS NOW CHAMPION ‘BLM’ PROTESTS
Protests around the country, and in Florida, have seen a dramatic decline in social distancing in recent weeks. While data show that infections in Florida outpace new testing, the numbers also indicate that many of the newly infected are young and are not becoming seriously ill.
DeSantis added that doomsday predictions about Florida’s coronavirus numbers were off-base, and urged young residents to “protect the vulnerable” by socially distancing and steering clear of the elderly — stopping short of other governors, who have suggested residents should generally stay home.
“We’re open, we know who we need to protect, most of the folks in those younger demographics, although we want them to be mindful of what’s going on, are just simply much much less at risk than the folks who are in those older age groups,” DeSantis added.
Beachgoers sunbathe as beaches are reopened with restrictions to limit the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Miami Beach, Florida, U.S., June 10, 2020. REUTERS/Marco Bello – RC2J6H9PQG3A
Earlier this month, DeSantis adopted a different posture, telling constituents that the worst was over.
“In our phase two, we will be going with bars being able to operate consistent with this guidance diminished standing room occupancy so basically outdoor seating with social distance, a certain amount indoors, but you’re seated to get served. I mean … go enjoy. Have a drink. It’s fine,” DeSantis said. “We want to kind of not have huge crowds piling in.”
At the same time, DeSantis has issued a stark warning to businesses that defy the state’s social distancing guidelines, threatening to revoke business licenses from bars and restaurants.
“If you go in and it’s just mayhem, like ‘Dance Party USA’ and it’s packed to the rafters, that’s just cut-and-dry and that’s not just an innocent mistake,” DeSantis said.
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As Florida’s reported cases spiked to record highs the past two weeks, though, DeSantis’ administration ordered bars to essentially shut down again. Officials in New York and New Jersey have also debated slowing their reopenings as a result.
That move sent Kylie Davis, a 23-year-old bartender in Tampa, Fla., back to unemployment. She had returned to work May 23 after two months without a job, struggling to collect unemployment benefits from Florida’s backlogged system. The tips, she said, were good.
People attend a protest amid nationwide unrest following the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Miami, Florida, U.S., May 31, 2020. REUTERS/Marco Bello – RC220H90OZ67
“People were so understanding,” she said, “that we had been out of work for a while and were extremely generous.”
Yet after a few weeks, Davis was coughing and exhausted and had lost her sense of taste and smell. On June 12, she tested positive for the virus and couldn’t return to work when Florida bars reopened.
The jarring reversal underscores what many economists had been stressing for months: That the economy and the job market can’t regain their health until business shutdowns have lasted long enough to reduce infections and most Americans feel confident enough to return to restaurants, bars, hotels, shopping malls and airports.
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“It is the virus, not lockdowns, that dictates the course of the economy,” said Yongseok Shin, an economist at Washington University and a research fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “We cannot have a full economic recovery without reining in the epidemic.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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