Steve Cannon/AP Photo Florida won’t release data on coronavirus testing

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis and top health officials on Thursday said Florida is preparing for the possible arrival of coronavirus, emphasizing that the state has no confirmed cases so far.

DeSantis, speaking to reporters, wouldn’t say whether anyone in Florida has been tested for the virus, citing a state law that protects the identity of people under epidemiological investigation.


“I actually wanted to give all the numbers,” DeSantis said. “But they actually pointed me to the regulation in the statute that says you can’t.”

DeSantis said he is taking his cues on the reading of the law from Surgeon General Scott Rivkees, Florida’s health secretary, who said the coronavirus hasn’t risen yet to a public health crisis.

“At the present time, we don’t have community spread in Florida, we don’t have coronavirus in Florida. So, the law dictates that we protect the confidentiality of individuals,” Rivkees said Thursday. “If those circumstances change, then we absolutely will make the public informed.”

The state’s patient-protection law has three exemptions for when the public’s health is at risk — when a disease is highly infectious, when there’s a potential for further outbreaks, or when the state has been unable to locate or identify people involved in the case.

State Sen. José Javier Rodríguez (D-Miami) told reporters after the DeSantis briefing that Rivkees was misinterpreting the law. The governor’s administration is handling coronavirus information differently than previous administrations handled other outbreaks, he said, such as the Zika virus in 2016.

The state should be releasing aggregate information to the public, Rodríguez said, including the number of people tested and the number and whereabouts of people who have self-quarantined.

He said he plans to amend a health department regulatory bill next week if Rivkees maintains his position.

“They’re relying on a brand-new interpretation of statute, that’s not really there, to say ‘we have to wait until there’s a confirmed case in Florida to tell the public,’” Rodríguez told POLITICO.

In 2016, then-Gov. Rick Scott led the state’s response to Zika, releasing information that the virus appeared to have spread locally and that four people in Miami-Dade and Broward counties likely had been infected.

Earlier this month, Scott, now a U.S. senator, urged the Trump administration to be transparent about the virus and the threats it poses.

DeSantis said he would inform the public as soon as there is a confirmed case of coronavirus in Florida.

“Clearly, if there is a documented case, then that would be something that is going to be disseminated,” DeSantis said. “Obviously not the personal characteristics of the patient, but that would be an easy thing to do.”

Florida Department of Health Deputy Secretary Shamarial Roberson said in an interview that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is updating the state daily on the containment strategy for the potential pandemic, which originated in China. One case has been confirmed in California, where a person who wasn’t at high risk acquired the virus.

Anyone who has visited China’s Hubei province and exhibited flu-like symptoms within two weeks is at high risk and has been tested for the illness, Roberson said. Health officials also are testing anyone who has visited mainland China, developed symptoms within two weeks and has been hospitalized, and anyone who has come into contact with a person who has the disease and has symptoms, Roberson said.

The CDC maintains a list of people who have been tested and is leading the country’s response to the virus, Roberson said. The CDC is working with state health officials, who are working with hospitals, doctors and county health departments.

If a person in Florida feels flu-like symptoms, they should go to their primary care provider, who should call their county health department, state health department spokesperson Alberto Moscoso said.

The federal Centers for Disease Control is working with the World Health Organization to develop a strategy for handling the virus, for which a vaccine isn’t expected for at least a year.

More information is available on the Department of Health’s website.