CORAL GABLES, FLA. (WSVN) - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has spoken at the University of Miami regarding the coronavirus pandemic in the state.
The Florida Department of Health has reported more than 70,000 cases of COVID-19 infections statewide. As of 11 a.m. Friday, Miami-Dade County has climbed up 20,872 confirmed cases, while Broward County has 8,589 cases.
An uptick of 1,902 new cases of COVID-19 was reported Friday — the biggest daily increase since the pandemic hit the state in March.
Some believe that the increase in COVID-19 cases is due to more people getting tested for it, while others believe that it’s a result of the state reopening too many businesses too soon.
Infectious disease experts, like Dr. Aileen Marty, are concerned that reopenings are happening too quickly and insist the large gatherings are sparking the virus’ spread.
“It’s just simple science. If you give the virus the opportunity to spread from one host to the next, it will,” Marty said.
On top of this, President Donald Trump will be accepting the Republican nomination for president in Jacksonville, an event that will undoubtedly draw large crowds to the state of Florida.
“I mean, we’ll see. That’s a couple of months away,” DeSantis said Friday. “Now, we have widespread testing. We’re doing three times as many tests a day now than we did at the end of March, but if you look at the state of Florida and the percent positivity by county, the all counties that are 10%, and we don’t have any, I think, that are above 15%. The 10 to 15 percent counties is either because they have agriculture outbreaks or prisons or both.”
DeSantis spoke about the numbers, Thursday.
“What New York had, that’s a spike,” he said, “so to say that there’s a spike, there’s never been a spike in Florida.”
Not only has Florida reopened nearly everything, but many people across the state have been participating in protests against police brutality, where social distancing isn’t always possible.
“There is not yet evidence that I’m aware of that that has sparked any type of significant outbreaks,” DeSantis said.
The governor said the convention will be coming to the state with a plan to make sure their event is safe to attend.
“They’ve been thinking about this a long time, and I think it will be a mix of mitigation measures and testing, but they are really working hard on it,” DeSantis said. “They’re working hard with the folks at the White House, and so it’s convinced me that it could be done in a way that minimizes risk to folks.”
The RNC will be held in August.
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