As DeSantis defers to White House on stay-home order, a top U.S. official urges one

Update: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a statewide stay-at-home order on Wednesday afternoon. Visit miamiherald.com for the latest developments.

One day after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said a recommendation from the White House Coronavirus Task Force to issue a stay-at-home order in Florida “would carry a lot of weight,” the U.S. surgeon general said on national television that staying at home is one of the best strategies to fight the spread of COVID-19.

Jerome Adams, the surgeon general and a member of the task force, said in an interview with the “Today” show that staying at home is the “best possible guidance” the task force can give to states.

“The governors get to make the decisions but we’re going to give them the best possible guidance we can and that is to stay at home and to social distance,” Adams said.

“Today” host Savannah Guthrie then played a clip of DeSantis’ Tuesday press conference for Adams.

“The task force has not recommended that to me. If they do, obviously, that would be something that would carry a lot of weight with me,” DeSantis said.

Adams did not explicitly call for Florida to issue a stay-at-home order, something that other politicians from around the state and epidemiologists have demanded. But he said it’s up to governors in the 17 states who have not issued stay-at-home orders, as of Wednesday, to make the decision.

“Governors have tough choices to make. They have to decide whether or not their citizens will listen to them without a stay-at-home order,” Adams said. “But the most important thing is to make sure people stay at home, stay six feet away from each other. That’s how you slow the spread.”

Adams also praised the responses of states like California and Washington, who were among the first states to implement statewide stay-at-home orders.

DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond when asked if they considered Adams’ remarks to be a directive from the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

But Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, Florida’s only statewide elected Democrat, said Adams’ remarks amounted to White House permission for Florida to issue a stay-at-home order.

“Ron DeSantis, you now have your permission from the White House to issue Florida’s #StayAtHome order,” Fried tweeted. “What are you waiting for?”

“There is a dangerous lack or urgency from our governor,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, added. “The governor holds the unique power to issue this order. He’ll also be singularly responsible if people get sick and die.”

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who is a registered Republican, said Wednesday he would issue a stay-at-home order if he were governor. Suarez tested positive for the coronavirus and ended his 18-day quarantine on Monday after two negative tests.

The governor’s comments during his Tuesday press conference — that he would give a lot of credence to White House recommendations — were a shift from his approach for the past three weeks where he emphasized it was up to local leaders around Florida to make decisions regarding closures that were best for their communities.

Some Florida municipalities closed restaurants, beaches, parks and nonessential businesses weeks ago. Others, like St. Johns County in Northeast Florida, kept beaches open through last weekend and only closed them after a photograph of hundreds of beachgoers ignoring social distancing guidelines went viral.

DeSantis spokeswoman Helen Aguirre Ferré said Tuesday that Florida Surgeon General Scott Rivkees has not advised the governor either way about whether the state should shut down.

Ali Mokdad, a professor at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said he told Rivkees on Monday night that DeSantis should issue a blanket stay-at-home order. The University of Washington’s research model says Florida’s coronavirus outbreak is on pace to peak in early May and overwhelm intensive care units — even with a statewide stay-at-home order— and without a stay-at-home order their model will be adjusted to project more deaths.

DeSantis announced Monday that Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties are under stay-at-home orders until April 15.

“My advice to America would be that these guidelines are a national stay at home order,” Adams said, on TV Wednesday. “They’re guidelines that say the more we stay at home, the more we social distance, the less spread of disease there will be.”

Herald/Times staff writers Bianca Padró Ocasio and Lawrence Mower contributed to this report.

This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 11:45 AM.