Jeffrey Schweers

USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau

In a dramatic step to stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus outbreak in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered all bars and nightclubs to shut down at 5 p.m. Tuesday for the next 30 days, and required restaurants to cut their crowd capacity in half.

The announcement came on St. Patrick's Day, one of the most profitable days of the year for many nightlife establishments across the country, including Florida.

Later Tuesday, he announced major decisions affecting K-12 education, including extending public schools closures to April 15 and canceling required standardized state testing this year. He said parents may hold their students back a year and that teaching hours could be modified.

DeSantis also disclosed that four University of Florida students tested positive for the virus, including at least one who had traveled internationally. Others may have visited New York and other "hot zones," he said.

And he ordered folks going to the beach to go in groups of 10 or smaller and keep at least six feet away from other groups, and support beach closures by local authorities.

"These steps we're taking will reduce density, reduce crowds," DeSantis said at a morning news conference in the Capitol, after conferring with the mayors of Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County, Fort Myers and Clearwater. "Our hope is these new restrictions will help that."

From noon to 5 p.m., the number of cases in Florida grew by 24 to 216, including 196 Florida residents, with 1,042 tests outstanding.

Two of the newest cases are a Leon County woman and a Gadsden County man who had been to Japan. DeSantis also announced the first case related to an assisted living facility: A 77-year-old Broward County man.

That brings the total number of dead in Florida related to COVID-19 to five.

More than 2,000 people in Florida have been investigated, of which 904 tested negative. But there are still nearly 900 people under investigation waiting to be tested.

The governor further announced he is recommending that the Board of Governors of the State University System place all students at the 12 public universities on distance learning through the end of spring semester.

"We noticed students are congregating at universities, going out and doing things there," DeSantis said. "We don't want large crowds of people congregating right now. We want enough isolation so that the virus has more difficulty spreading throughout the community."

The goal of the campus shutdown is to get students to go home where they will be safer, the governor said.

Public schools will extend distance learning through April 15, which would put students into May testing. Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said that wouldn't work, so DeSantis reversed policy direction and canceled state testing this year.

"We live in unprecedented times," Corcoran told reporters.

The Department of Education will reevaluate the moves on April 15.

The decision to order bar and nightclub closings and reduce restaurant capacity by half comes after two days of considering new recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the White House.

The CDC has recommended that all gatherings of 50 or more be canceled for the next eight weeks. Moreover, the White House has recommended that seniors stay indoors and avoid groups of more than 10 people.

"We are going to do similar to what California did, where you have a 50% capacity limitation" in eateries, DeSantis said. "Seating needs to be staggered and separated so that you have separation of seated patrons of at least six feet.

"This is the floor for Florida for the foreseeable future," he added, adding that Miami may go even further. "We encourage other communities to do that. This gives communities the flexibility to go further if they want to."

The bar and nightclub closing applies to establishments that derive 50% or more of their gross revenue from alcohol sales. Enforcement will be managed by the state's Department of Business and Professional Regulation and the Division of Emergency Management.

DeSantis weighed his options over two days before announcing his decision this morning. "We looked at it hard and internalized it," DeSantis said.

The new measures follow several other states that have mandated tough restrictions on bars, restaurants, theaters and other venues, as well as decisions by the mayors of Miami, Miami-Dade and Jacksonville to curtail activities of large groups.

Miami Beach has canceled Spring Break activities. Beaches in Miami and Fort Lauderdale are closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Across the nation, large tourist meccas like Las Vegas, New York and Los Angeles have taken extreme measures. For the first time in memory, the Las Vegas Strip is shut down. Seattle has banned all live music events for 30 days. New Orleans is on relative lockdown.

Pennsylvania has ordered a shutdown of all non-essential business and only allow takeout. The tri-state area of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey has entered a pact to shut down movie theaters, gyms and casinos and only allow takeout from restaurants.

Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Washington have ordered all bars and restaurants to shut down. Massachusetts has banned gatherings of more than 25 people until April 17. California asked bars, restaurants and wineries to shut down and told people over 65 to stay indoors.

Asked Sunday why Florida was waiting to enact similar draconian measures, DeSantis then said, “At the end of the day, we have got to have everyone on the same sheet of music to make this work. What is the road we are going to travel? How sustainable is some of the stuff being done? We can succeed with social distancing up to a point (until) the public says, 'we have had enough of it.' ”

Meanwhile, as testing across the state expands to include private labs, state Surgeon General Scott Rivkees, who also is the state secretary of health, said the state has hired 100 additional epidemiologists to help in processing results. DeSantis said progress was being made on the mobile drive-through testing facility in Broward County, and was talking to other areas to set up similar sites.

The state also is working with local communities to create test sites so that when physicians order tests, their patients have a place to go, including Tallahassee.

Cases follow testing, according to state data. Where there is a lot of testing, there are lots of positive cases. Areas where there is little testing show few cases.

DeSantis said Division of Emergency Management Director is sending 100 test kits to areas in North Florida that have not seen a lot of testing. Those kits have the capacity to process 250,000 samples.

"We are going to have the capacity," DeSantis said, expressing frustration by the lack of data. "We are getting half-baked data from China, maybe better information from Italy," he said. "But the extent to which people with no or minor symptoms are spreading the virus is unknown."

The vast majority of cases are related to international travel or domestic areas where there is COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, Rivkees said — but there is also evidence of person-to-person and community spread.

“If you traveled to Florida within the last 14 days, or traveled from a domestic site, we ask that you practice social distancing in the event you develop COVID-19, to stop the spread,” Rivkees said Sunday.

Contact Jeff Schweers at jschweers@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @jeffschweers.

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