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Florida Governor DeSantis Gives Update On Lockdown Order

   DailyWire.com
MIAMI GARDENS, FLORIDA - MARCH 30: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a news conference in the Hard Rock Stadium parking lot on March 30, 2020 in Miami Gardens, Florida. The news conference, held at a COVID-19 testing center with the mayors from Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties, was used to explain efforts being taken to combat the outbreak in their communities.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis explained to Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Wednesday why he delayed putting in place a statewide stay at home order and gave an update on cruise ships that were trying to dock in Florida.

“And Governor, today you also issued a stay at home order,” Cavuto said. “Many of your critics and Democrats who wrote a letter to you to say that you shouldn’t put this off, you’ve done that. How will it work? When does it take effect?”

“Well, just so your viewers know, Southeast Florida has about 60 percent of our cases. We have done stay at home in conjunction with the mayor of Miami-Dade. So they’ve been under restrictions for a couple of weeks now,” DeSantis responded. “I had some counties – I mean, I have counties of half a million people that have only a handful of cases, so we have not done it state-wide. But in our hot spot that had been done.”

“Now with the president doing the extra 30 days, my view is, look, the country has hit the pause button. We’ve hit the pause button. This is the number one, two, three priority,” DeSantis continued. “I know there was talk about getting the economy back a little sooner, but I think that unless we just deal with this – and so I felt it made sense to extend it statewide.”

“And obviously, we have a lot of parts of Florida that haven’t been hit as hard as Miami or Broward, but we want to keep it that way, and we don’t want to see more spread in those areas, it’s just Southeast Florida that’s kind of our epicenter,” DeSantis continued. “We’ve put a lot of resources down there. We don’t want there to be a massive surge obviously, but we’ve got a lot of resources staged there. So I think it’s the best policy for the state at this time.”

WATCH:

TRANSCRIPT:

NEIL CAVUTO, FOX ANCHOR: With us now is the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who is kind enough to join us on the phone.

Governor, thank you for joining us. What about these ships? What are you going to do?

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Yes, so I think actually we’re going to have a solution. When this first came on our radar, I was told that these ships were all foreign nationals and that they had no connection to Florida.

So I was just like, why would you just bring them to Florida? It turns out, there are American citizens and we actually have Floridians — I think there’s 30 or 40 Floridians. And so the county is working on a plan to be able to get the Floridians back safely. Safely expatriate the foreign nationals so that they’re not mixing with our community. I have offered National Guard support to be able to help in that effort.

We were concerned about a deluge into the hospitals, but I think it turns out that there will probably be some who will need to go, but it’s very, very manageable and the local hospital system thinks that they can handle it. So I actually think they’re going to be able to deal with this in a way that makes sense.

And obviously, once we found out that there were American citizens and Floridians especially on board, we wanted to find a way to make it work. There was though — there is a concern of course, given that we have most of our cases in those two counties, that if you had folks infected and then they were going to the airport or going to different areas, that that could potentially spread, continue to help this spread.

But I think they have it figured out so it will all be done safely. And I’m hoping that they will be able to come to a resolution on that very soon.

CAVUTO: Would they dock in Fort Lauderdale? Where would they go?

DESANTIS: Yes, I think they would. But what would happen is, they would — the Floridians obviously, some of the Floridians live right in Broward​. Some of the other Floridians, you know, would be taken to, you know, where they are from.

The foreigners, I think there will be flights arranged for them. They will not go to the airport. It’ll be done to where there is not an opportunity to spread coronavirus to the people of Florida.

So I think it’s a thoughtful approach they are working on, and hopefully the cruise line will be willing to agree to some of the terms the county wants.

But look, at the end of the day, Neil, I mean I think that we’ve seen these cruise ships be big problems with this virus. And I know they’re not sailing any new ones, but this is going to continue to be a problem, and so we just want to make sure that people are safe, both on those ships, but particularly onshore in places like the state of Florida.

CAVUTO: And Governor, today you also issued a stay at home order. Many of your critics and Democrats who wrote a letter to you to say that you shouldn’t put this off, you’ve done that. How will it work? When does it take effect?

DESANTIS: Well just so your viewers know, Southeast Florida has about 60 percent of our cases. We have done have done stay at home in conjunction with the mayor of Miami-Dade. So they’ve been under restrictions for — for a couple of weeks now.

I had some counties — I mean, I have counties of half a million people that have only a handful of cases, so we have not done it state-wide. But in our hot spot that had been done.

Now with the president doing the extra 30 days, my view is, look the country has hit the pause button. We’ve hit the pause button. This is the number one, two, three priority.

I know there was talk about getting the economy back a little sooner, but I think that unless we just deal with this — and so I felt it made sense to extend it statewide.

And obviously, we have a lot of parts of Florida that haven’t been hit as hard as Miami or Broward, but we want to keep it that way and we don’t want to see more spread in those areas if —

CAVUTO: How do you–

DESANTIS: — it’s just Southeast Florida that’s kind of our epicenter. We’ve put a lot of resources down there. We don’t want there to be a massive surge obviously, but we’ve got a lot of resources staged there. So I think it’s the best policy for the state at this time.

CAVUTO: How are you policing the beaches and crowds going to the beaches? I mean, you’ve got hundreds of thousands of miles if you think about it. I’m just – how do you police that?

DESANTIS: We have no crowds on any public space of 10 or more. And so, some places just close every public space because they don’t want to police it. Some people have let people go to a park, whatever. But what happens is, our whole state is a coastline and so you can have a beach be closed, but guess what, unless you are policing at 24/7, people go out there.

So I was flying out of Miami, we’re going up the coast. I see a slew of beaches that are closed, but I mean you do have people that go out there. So this is kind of like whack-a-mole people are going to do different things.

But a lot of the stuff in the media that was played about spring break, that was before the CDC had changed their guidance. So they were saying 1,000 people groups were fine, that was four days before the 15 days to stop the spread.

So it escalated quickly, and then once that happened, you know, the groups were banned all throughout the state of Florida. So — but we are seeing other areas understanding, people do congregate in private residences and other things.

And we have 21.5 million people. I mean it’s definitely a challenge. Most people have been doing a great job, and I want to thank the people of Florida for doing a great job.

CAVUTO: Thank you Governor very, very much. I know you’re quite busy.

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