Florida governor Ron DeSantis joked that Florida is “God’s waiting room,” while discussing care home fatalities in the state.

During his briefing on Sunday, where he discussed the likelihood of Florida reopening later this week, the governor said that the state has a high number of care facilities.

“Florida is ground zero for the nursing home; I mean we’re God’s waiting room,” DeSantis joked in Orlando. “We have a huge number of facilities, a huge number of residents,” he added.

Mr DeSantis told reporters that despite the high number of care homes in the state, Florida has done significantly better in stopping coronavirus fatalities, than other areas.

He cited worse figures in New York and Massachusetts, among other states, and confirmed that “Florida is 1.2 fatalities per 100,000 in those long term care facilities.”

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Twitter users were quick to criticise the governor’s comments, and @teapainusa tweeted: “Florida is ‘God’s waiting room?’ Well, Seniors? Do you enjoy bein’ the punchline in the Republican stand-up routine?”

Another user, @sheLLbeLL_xo, added: “Ron DeSantis calls Florida ‘God’s waiting room’ for dying seniors. This is a shameful stmt. What a lack of decency. The elderly have so much to offer. Their wisdom alone is a gift.”

During Sunday’s briefing, Mr DeSantis said that “Florida has performed better than anyone predicted.

“People should be comforted in knowing that all those predictions of hundreds of thousands of people hospitalised were not accurate, and it has just not been the case so that’s a good thing.”

The governor has faced criticism for not issuing a stay-at-home order for the state until 1 April.

He said that he hadn’t issued the order because the White House hadn’t told him to.

“I’ve said, ‘Are you recommending this?’ The task force has not recommended that to me,” he said in March. “If any of those task force folks tell me that we should do X, Y or Z, of course, we’re going to consider it.”

He added that he would follow government guidelines when deciding whether or not to reopen Florida on Thursday, after some areas of the state reopened beaches last week.

Google’s dedicated coronavirus page shows that Florida has upwards of 30,839 confirmed cases and at least 1,055​ deaths.