Coronavirus In Florida: Governor Makes New Orders For Residents To Stay Home

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a shelter-in-place order Monday for four counties and told two cruise ships carrying passengers with coronavirus couldn’t be “dumped” on the state.

DeSantis made the shelter-in-place order official during a press conference at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, where health officials have been conducting drive-thru COVID-19 tests. The order would expand on the original advisory and urges residents in the southern Florida counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe to self-quarantine until “mid-May.”

The four counties reportedly house nearly 60% of the state’s confirmed COVID-19 cases.

“This codifies a common set of rules regarding ‘safer at home’ in Southeast Florida,” DeSantis said. “It gets all four counties operating under the same sheet of music.”

Despite the order, other politicians in Florida argue that a statewide approach needs to be taken to best address the spread of COVID-19. One of these figures includes Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, who represents Florida’s 37th district, said a “patchwork approach” won’t work.

“Because we remain so far behind on testing, we cannot know how far behind we also are in trying to catch up with the virus as it spreads,” Rodriguez said. “Counties like Lee, for example, have medical professionals urging for a safer-at-home order, reminding us why a statewide order is the best approach.”

DeSantis’ order is a change in stance from earlier in March when he voiced hesitance at issuing a direct shelter-in-place order. He instead wanted to allow local officials to determine the best course of action, especially as the pandemic hit during spring break.

“We’ve seen some big crowds on the west coast of Florida and I’ve had a chance to speak to mayors on both coasts today,” DeSantis told reporters on March 17 in response to photos and videos of large crowds at beaches. “If … they want to continue to [leave the beach open], we want them to have the freedom to do that, but we also want them to have the freedom to do more if they see fit.”

This was followed by an order on March 18 limiting groups visiting Florida’s beaches to 10 and requiring beachfront bars and restaurants to cut occupancy in half.

But DeSantis had more to say following the press conference, specifically on the two cruise ships heading to Florida from the Caribbean.

Appearing on Fox News, he said he didn’t want passengers onboard the Holland America cruise ships Zaandam and Rotterdam “dumped” in southern Florida. DeSantis said most of the people on both ships were “foreigners” and didn’t want to further burden hospitals.

Zaandam has been the harder of the two ships hit, with 189 guests and crew members of the 1,200 people sick and four elderly guests pronounced dead from an “influenza-like illness.” The ships passed through the Panama Canal on Sunday on their way to Fort Lauderdale, where Holland America was planning to dock both ships.

“We cannot afford to have people who are not even Floridians dumped into south Florida using up those valuable resources,” DeSantis said. “So, I’m in contact with the White House on this, I’m in contact with the local county officials in both Broward and Miami-Dade. But yes, we view this as a big, big problem and we do not want to see people dumped in southern Florida right now.”

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis has also voiced his hesitation about letting the ships dock,

“No assurances have been given that they will be escorted from the ship to either a treatment facility or placed in quarantine," Trantalis said. "This is completely unacceptable! We cannot add further risk to our community amid our own health crisis here with thousands of people already testing positive for the deadly and contagious COVID-19 virus in the tri-county area.”