Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joins Sean Hannity to explain state's response to spike in COVID-19 cases.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
But one thing we do know is to
protect the elderly.
This includes planning for
reopening schools in August
here to explain all of this
Florida governor RON Desantis.
I keep reading. We have a
dramatic increase of cases in
Florida,
okay,
but its happening among younger
people
give us the percentages. Tell us
whats going on in the ground.
Tell us with the death rate, is
tell us about the
hospitalizations and tell us
what Florida is doing about it.
We have no doubt seen a major
increase in cases. Median age of
our new cases was in the 50s
about a month and a half ago, my
now thats dropped into the
30s,
obviously thats important, as
you know, because people who are
healthy and under forty you have
the death rate of this thing
very close to zero, so that
significant.
Now we are prepared for this,
seeing particularly places like
Miami seeing increased traffic
and hospitals, but its
interesting. I was down there
today and they said that they
are actually seeing fewer
hospitalizations from people in
nursing homes, which is obviously
a good sign because thats, where
the number one risk of mortality
is and what weve done since
March and April protect and
long term care facilities as we
didnt. Let the hospitals
discharge, the covid, positive
patients back to nursing homes.
But now we are saying, if someone
tests positive in a nursing
home, you have a responsibility
to transfer them to a place. They
could safely be isolated, so
weve established across the
state of Florida, twelve covid only
nursing homes where residents
can safely be transferred, so
they dont infect the people in
their normal long term care
facility they can be cared for
and that is going to really
reduce outbreaks in the
long term care facilities, which
is very important
lets start by new
cases by age. This is surprising
to me most cases, people twenty one
explained that because that has
not previously happen.
So the most cases now in
Florida at twenty one- and I think a
couple of things have happened.
One is, there is no doubt more
transmission going on in the
community, particularly amongst
people in their 20s and 30s,
but they are not
dying from it. Like old people,
correct,
be back exactly
the case, fatality
rate by state. If you look at
Connecticut New Jersey,
Michigan and New York, it is
very high and in your state
one point, eight percent
that still holds even with these
new cases. We are seeing pop up
in Florida,
thats right and, I think,
thats a testament to shielding
the elderly from infections,
particularly nursing home
residents.
The fact of the matter is if the
case occurs, for someone in your
20s, you have radically
different fatality prospects
than someone who was in a
long term care facility, and they
are eighty. So we worked hard to
shield off the folks who were
the most vulnerable, so I think
thats why we have a much lower
case. Fatality rate
now lets go to the
deaths reported by day, and this
is up to the beginning of July
per one million population
Florida versus New York.
There is a flattened line here
and I look at it and im saying:
okay, im reading and hearing
the media freaking out, they
didnt freak out during the
protests, only started being
concerned about covid when the
president was doing a rally. So
these younger people are not
dying from this, for younger
people are contracting the virus
because you were doing more
testing. Is that correct?
We are definitely doing more
testing, but obviously we want
to make sure that those
infections are not spreading to
the vulnerable, and that is the
key.
Are you still doing
what you did in the beginning,
which is going into these
nursing homes?
Absolutely,
and now we are testing every
staff member every two weeks
and thats, almost two hundred thousand people
that work at over four thousand
facilities in the state of
Florida.
Lastly, you have twelve
Covid dedicated nursing
facilities in Florida alone.
Tell me what thats about
really quick.
It is a safe place for if
someone test positive, they can
be isolated in these facilities,
so it doesnt spread into the
rest of the nursing home
residents,
its a way to reduce and prevent
outbreaks. Among our very most
vulnerable citizens,
one Maxima, in other words, while
younger people are getting it,
they are not dying from it and
also protecting the elderly,
a side effect.
We are protecting the
elderly.
We do it every day.
Transcript generated on 2020-07-21.