Florida Governor Ron DeSantis provides updates on the coronavirus strategy in the state on ‘Fox & Friends.’
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Id like to see the Schoolses
open
the country has to open.
You know we did the right
thing. We closed it down. We
saved millions of lives
now were opening it up, and I
think the Democrats are actually
doing it largely for political
reasons.
They think the economy wont be
as strong because were doing
very well with jobs.
We broke the record two months
in a row with job numbers
a lot. I really believe the
Democrats are doing this for a
political reason.
If you close down California,
you know its a big state. You
chose down some of these places,
its not going to show
watch on November 4th
everything will open up
Steve Steve. The president,
talking to our own Dr Mark
Siegel yesterday,
lets bring in the governor of
the great state of Florida,
Governor RON, Desantis
Good morning dog you
good Morning,
Steve. The president has been
very clear. He would like to see
kids go back to in class
learning in the fall
you would as well, but the
teachers Union has gone to court
and is suing you
is it, as the president just
said, political with the
teachers union?
You know im, not sure
Steve, but the way I look at it.
We know that school children are
by far at the least risk from
coronavirus, thankfully much
less risk than they are from
seasonal influential.
We also know they play the
smallest role by far in
transmission of the virus,
and yet theyve really been
asked to shoulder the bankrupt
of our control, the brunt of
our control measures.
If you think about the schools
going to distance learning in
March, that went the rest of the
year,
theyve had activities, canceled
theyve, obviously not been able
to be with their friends. The
achievement gap has widenedded,
so were in a situation where
evidence based decision would
be. You know parents need to
have the ability to have
in class instruction
now in Florida. What we tell
parents is look if youre, not
comfortable. You have the right
to maintain distance learning
thats fine,
but we have a lot of parents who
think that their kids will fall
behind if theyre not able to
get back inside the classroom.
You know what
I know the union has positions
Steve, but there are a lot of
teachers throughout Florida that
are itching to get back because
they understand the gap thats
developed and they want to be
there for those kids,
Ainsley thats good to hear
most parents want it because of
childcare issues, but also, more
importantly, we want our
children to learn and not fall
behind.
I know youre investigating
this. There were some people
that said down in Florida. They
never got a test, but now
theyre listed as testing
positive.
How did that happen?
Well, it didnt happen at any
of the sites that the state of
Florida is running. Thankfully,
theres, a testing industrial
complex now
theres a lot of money at stake
here. People cranking out these
tests,
theres private companies
involved.
So what weve asked anyone
thats gotten a letter, an
e mail, anything a text
message you know bring that
forward, because we want to hold
people accountable in theyre
engaged in funny business like
that.
But you do have people, and I
you know you hear a lot of
things. Obviously, but ive
heard this so many times from
people that really dont have a
reason to make anything up. You
know that I think theres
something there there.
So we absolutely want to get
that evidence and go, and there
also was a report in Orlando a
week or so ago, where you had
someone in a motorcycle accident
died, unfortunately, but that
was categorized as a covid death
just because the person had
previously tested positive.
So you know, I think, the public
when they see the fatality
figures they want to know who
died because they caught covid
if youre in a car accident and
weve had other instances in
just it was no real relationship.
Thats been counted, so we want
to to see how pervasive that
issue as well
Brian im. Looking at some of
these stats. Fifty three of your Icus
are zero percent capacity.
Last week, last Thursday, you had
the all time death rate for
Florida at one hundred and fifty six,
so you have a lot of cases still
there
and you have the Icus
packed.
Well, let me let let me just
correct that
that you know what theyre
doing theyre identifying
hospitals, some of which dont is
have any icu, because theyre
rural hospitals,
you have otherses that have a
very small number of beds who
have people in Icu who arent
covid patients.
We had some doctors the other
day. Just talk about the record.
We have between zero percent of beds
have been available, consistent,
hi and between zero percent of Icu
beds. Statewide have been
available
is so sometimes youll have a
big hospital system where
therell be one hospital and
thats by design.
Inaudible conversations
Brian, you just told me, you
dont believe its your policies
or the behavior of Floridians
that are causing these spikes.
You believe its seasonal.
Why?
Well? Because if you look
across the sun belt, look im
not saying theres, nothing to do
with behavior.
Obviously that can happen,
but regardless of policy youre
seeing cases across the sun belt,
almost in unison is
first, it was Arizona, then
Florida, Texas, then Southern
California, then South Carolina.
If so, I think that just the
natural progression of this
different in the sun belt than
it was in the northeast,
and so our view has been you
know. We knew that it was going
to come back at some point. You
know when we went to phase one
at the dipping of May.
Fortunately, we had six weeks of
the lowest numbers weve had
throughout the pandemic. Then we
started to see it pick up.
So weve been ready for that, not
only in terms of what weve done
with supporting hospitals. Weve
established, fifteen covid only
nursing homes, so that seniors,
who get infected, have a place to
go and on and on
so weve been prepared for it.
I personally thought it probably
was going to come back in the
fall, but you know dealing with
it in the summer is something
that were ready for and were
handling
Steve Governor ive been
reading the Palm Beach post
during the pandemic, and this
morning they say with covid
deaths and cases continuing to
climb some health experts are
cautiously optimistic. That
Florida may actually have turned
a small corner in the fight
against the deadly coronavirus.
It sounds like things are
starting to flatten out there,
which is great,
but over the last number of
weeks, youve taken a lot of
heat because they said you know
what
he was just trying to reopen
things way too fast.
What do you say to those
critics?
Yeah?
Well, a couple things
one is. You know we had six
weeks of phase one where we had
our lowest number the 5 day,
Incue to base period. So if that
was the cause, you would have
seen spikes
and then southern Florida, where
weve had a significant portion
of cases theyre still in phase
one,
they were closed for basically
two months,
theyve never had pubses or
anything like that. Open
so I dont think that you know
I think people are always trying
to do political ploys, but I do
think the trends you know are
much more positive today than
they were. Two weeks ago,
we peaked on emergency
department, visits for Covid like
illness on July, 7th and weve
seen a general flattening in the
hospital census for Covid.
So so those are the types of
indicators where you see youre,
starting to get stabilization.
Our positivity rate is slightly
down from where it was which we
think will continue
and id also just point out. You
know when were doing all these
tests its a lot different than
how people were testing in March
and April.
We test everybody
most of the people that test
positive, that are new cases, are
asymptomatic or mildly
symptomatic and dont require
any medical attention,
so thats just important
context. I think for people to
understand
Ainsley thanks governor for.
Transcript generated on 2020-07-29.