Coronavirus spreads to another 95 Floridians as Gov. DeSantis seeks hotel space for patients

Gov. Ron DeSantis said that he’s looking to use hotels, convention centers and vacant medical facilities to isolate COVID-19 patients as the number of infections in Florida the past week increased to 763 by Saturday.

“We want a place where positive cases can be isolated in a way that they can’t infect other people,” DeSantis said at an evening briefing, where he also outlined how the state is ramping up testing for the virus.

“We’re working on ways to figure out that. I told Mary (Mayhew, Secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration) to license any of these places where you may do some of the medical care,” DeSantis said.

Florida identified another 160 cases between Friday and Saturday evenings. Of the 763 cases, 57 are non Florida residents. There have been 12 deaths. And the state is monitoring 1,080 individuals for symptoms.

As the number of infections grows daily, Florida and other states are in a race to reduce the rate before the health care system is overwhelmed.

More than 21,000 individuals nationwide have contracted the respiratory illness. Medical officials in several states warn that critical supplies like tests for the virus, protective equipment and ventilators are in short supply.

DeSantis said Florida has 18,000 vacant hospital beds and 5,600 intensive care unit beds available. The state opened drive-through testing in Broward County Friday. Broward leads the state with 151 infections.

Another drive-through site opened in Duval County Saturday, and other drive-through testing sites will go on line in Tampa, Orlando and Miami early this coming week.

“The goal would be to be able to cast as broad a net with this as possible. (It) really helps to inform how best we are able to prevent more damage from the violence,” DeSantis explained.

At the same time, he said much of the preparation being taken is based on models rooted in “assumptions” that may not play out.

“At the end of the day, if you follow the basic rules that the CDC has recommended, such as good hygiene, washing your hands religiously and maintaining proper distance from people, you are going to be OK,” DeSantis said.

The biggest cluster remains in the southeast corner of the state with Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties accounting for more than half of the state’s infections.

Meanwhile a vast stretch of 22 counties from Port St. Joe in the Panhandle to Ocala is mostly COVID-19 free, except for Leon and Alachua, two counties home to three state universities.

The state health department reports another Leon County-based case Saturday, bringing the total to 4.

The latest case was identified as a 36-year-old man, who is a non-Florida resident, who had traveled in Georgia, but tested in Tallahassee. It was unknown if he had contact with a confirmed case.

Broward County remains the state's hotspot with 164 cases, folllowed by Miami-Dade with 169 cases and Palm Beach with 56, making up more than half of confirmed Florida infections.

Since the first U.S. case was reported in January, 21,000 individuals have contracted the respiratory illness and large segments of the U.S. population are in lockdown, with shelter-in-place orders mandated in Illinois, California and New York.

On Friday night, Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried called on Gov. Ron DeSantis to implement a statewide "stay-at-home" order in response to the unfolding crisis.

“Shutting down one of the nation’s largest states is a decision that will have an economic impact – but it is a decision that save lives,” Fried said in a prepared statement.

But DeSantis has said he is reluctant to try a tactic that "people will not buy into" and not be sustainable and effective.

"We try to have a collaborative approach not because I think I don't have the power but ... because at the end of the day I can issue a mandate but if the local elected officials say we can't have this, then people are not going to have confidence in it," he said this week. "So, if we are all on the same page, we're all in it together, we have a chance to make progress."

The governor said he believed that social distancing guidelines are a more sustainable model to halt the spread of the disease. And with the state ramping up testing efforts, health officials will be better able to track the disease and contain it.

To date, Florida has tested more than 9,000 residents for the virus and there are another 1,028 tests pending.

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