By Ilana Siyance
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis shot back at Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s comments about New York State possibly “considering” imposing a quarantine on travelers coming from Florida, due to the spread of coronavirus.
“I would just ask if that’s done just please do not quarantine any Floridians in the nursing homes in New York,” DeSantis retorted Saturday in Tallahassee at a press conference, when asked about the proposed travel restrictions. The 41-year-old Sunshine State governor’s remark was referring to Gov. Cuomo’s infamous admittance of COVID-19 patients being discharged from hospitals into nursing homes and rehab centers, which critics say led to the rapid spread of the novel disease among NYS’s elderly.
As reported by the NY Post, on Thursday Gov. Cuomo had commented that a quarantine on travelers from Florida to New York is “something I’m considering”. “I have experts who have advised me to do that. I’m considering it now,” Cuomo said at a press conference.
Earlier in the Coronavirus emergency, when NY was named the pandemic’s epicenter, Florida had imposed the requirement for New Yorkers escaping to Florida to self-quarantine for two weeks upon arrival. Now the tables seem to be turning. As per AOL News, a group of Scientists have said that Florida may be named the new epicenter of the coronavirus. On Saturday, the state announced more than 4,000 new infections, setting a record for single-day increase in cases. Though DeSantis initially attributed the rise in numbers to increased testing in the state, even he admitted over the weekend that it cannot just be the augmented testing because “the number of people testing positive is accelerating faster than that.”
Most of Florida, including Miami, is now in phase 2 of reopening, in which restaurants, bars and hair salons are back to work, but at partial capacity. The state has seen resurgence in COVID-19 infections with the reopening, as have other states including Arizona, California and Nevada. Over the weekend, Florida’s average age of confirmed cases dropped to the younger age range of 18 through 35. The Florida governor said businesses serving young people, including crowded bars, need to do a better job enforcing social distancing.
To date, the total number of Covid-19 cases in the Sunshine State has reached nearly 98,000, with about 3,161 deaths. New York has seen at least 387,000 cases, with 30,839 deaths as per the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University. The total number of confirmed cases in the United States is 2,257,956, with an estimated total death toll of 119,115. About 617,460 people in the U.S. have recovered to date.
