‘Like a real-life experiment.’ Coronavirus forces Florida governor to face the unknown
Construction crews are erecting makeshift hospitals. Unemployment claims have spiked exponentially. The number of novel coronavirus cases are climbing across Florida. And the man in charge, first-term Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, is making decisions that could have ramifications for years and potentially determine whether people live or die.
With little precedent to guide him, DeSantis is faced with the responsibility to protect both the health of more than 20 million Floridians and the jobs that keep food on their tables.
So far, 18 states have issued stay-at-home orders to keep people inside. But with 23 dead in Florida and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases approaching 2,000, DeSantis has resisted doing the same.
“This really has never been done in America before,” DeSantis, a three-term congressman before becoming governor, said Wednesday at a warehouse in Orlando where boxes of medical supplies are stored before being shipped out across the state. “It’s kind of like a real-life experiment.”
As governor, DeSantis will likely never be in a position of greater consequence to Floridians’ lives and livelihoods.
Three academic models created with input by epidemiologists and health experts from Stanford, Harvard and Northeastern universities predict anywhere from 450,000 to 700,000 people in Florida are likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19, the disease caused by novel coronavirus, in the coming months, with the number of hospitalizations depending on preventative actions like social distancing.
And over the last four days, close to 100,000 Floridians filed unemployment claims — in a deluge that has overwhelmed the state’s system.
DeSantis has so far tried to halt the spread of novel coronavirus and protect Floridians with minimal damage to the economy — temporarily closing down assisted living facilities and nursing homes to visitors, blocking non-emergency medical procedures and limiting crowds at beaches.
Even so, DeSantis has still closed bars and forced restaurants to shut down their eating areas. He has worked with hard-hit cities and counties to close beaches and businesses. And he recently sent members of the Florida National Guard to meet travelers coming off flights from New York City and order them to self-isolate for two weeks.
But he has deflected growing demands to order the kind of statewide stay-at-home orders seen in Illinois and in New York, the state now seen as the U.S. epicenter of the global pandemic.
Instead, DeSantis’ decisions have closely paralleled the comments and actions coming out of the White House, which has similarly emphasized the importance of the economy while avoiding sweeping national orders. And he has set himself apart from hard-hit states with stay-at-home orders and Democratic governors — even questioning whether their moves have been counter productive.
DeSantis, who is viewed by politicos as a potential 2024 presidential contender for the GOP, suggested Wednesday that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s recent order closing non-essential businesses across the state was “symbolic,” noting that dozens of flights took off from New York City for Florida after the state began to lock down. He questioned the efficacy of Florida’s school closures, and said he’s worried that forcing businesses to close in parts of Florida that aren’t seeing high numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases would have unintended consequences and lead to increased incidents of domestic violence and suicide.
“You don’t want massive lockouts but that doesn’t mean you don’t have social distancing,” DeSantis said later Wednesday to reporters inside his office in Tallahassee. “There’s ways we can do [prevent the spread of coronavirus] as a society without thrusting people into protracted economic misery.”
While Florida’s large senior citizen population makes it especially vulnerable to a virus that has generally had greater consequences for the elderly, the state is also reliant on a $9 billion cruising industry, theme parks, tourism and hospitality to provide jobs and help pay for basic government functions.
All major cruise lines have stopped leaving PortMiami and Port Everglades, the first and third-busiest cruise ports in the world. Disney World, Universal Studios and Busch Gardens have all shut down. Restaurants across South Florida have been forced to impose mass layoffs after closing their seating areas.
“Our life blood has basically been shut off,” said Chip LaMarca, a Republican state representative and former commissioner in Broward County, one of the hardest hit areas in the state.
But to err on the side of the economy is, as one Republican consultant put it, “a big gamble.”
DeSantis insisted Wednesday that he’s relying on public health experts, speaking regularly to President Donald Trump and conferring with Deborah Birx, the head of the White House coronavirus task force. He said the state is basing decisions on facts including, according to his office spokeswoman, “the number of cases in Florida” and “reports coming in from other states like New York, where there are more cases.”
Still, in lieu of a statewide order, dozens of emergency room doctors signed an open letter this week calling on people to hunker down in their homes. And some health experts worry that Florida is running out of time to stop the spread of coronavirus from overwhelming hospitals with sick patients.
“It is past time to intervene to slow transmission [in Florida],” Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said Monday during a conference call in which he advocated for greater restrictions on the movements of all Floridians.
And a growing chorus of critics, including former Vice President Joe Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, are warning that DeSantis may be making a huge mistake.
“I hope he’s successful,” said state Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Miami Democrat who called on the governor Tuesday to slow the spread of the virus by issuing a statewide shelter-in-place order. “Because if they’re not successful, we’re screwed.”
DeSantis’ decision to allow cities and counties to decide for themselves whether to shut down has led to a patchwork of open and closed communities across the state, including Miami, Miami Beach and Orlando. Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, who shut down the heart of Miami’s tourism industry with DeSantis’ help during the middle of Spring Break, said the governor has been hugely helpful and attentive.
“He’s obviously listening. I’m not in the chorus of people complaining,” said Gelber, a Democrat. “It’s easy to second guess [DeSantis’ decisions], but I’m not calling mayors from all over the state right now. He is.”
At times, DeSantis’ decision to let local officials decide on sweeping closures has led to confusion: Tampa Mayor Jane Castor moved to shut down much of the city Tuesday, only to have the administrator of Hillsborough County say she didn’t have the sole authority to do so. More recently, it’s led to criticism from newspaper editorial boards and Democratic politicians, including most of Florida’s Democratic congressional delegation.
Another Republican Florida official who had resisted calls to order blanket shut-downs, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, responded to calls for a countywide stay-at-home order by announcing police and code enforcement officers would begin enforcing a series of restrictive executive orders already in place ordering the closures of non-essential businesses and limiting the size of public gatherings.
But DeSantis is unlikely to be swayed by public pressure, said Brad Herold, campaign manager for DeSantis’ 2018 gubernatorial race. Herold said DeSantis is deliberate in making decisions at times of crisis, and doesn’t stick his finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.
“He’s not going to be dictated to by liberal politicians and editorial boards,” Herold said. “Ron is a guy who is going to do what he thinks is best for the state, regardless of the consequence.”
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau Chief Mary Ellen Klas contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
