THE VILLAGES — Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday he doesn’t see the need to order Floridians to stay home, as several other states have done, because he believes social distancing has helped stem the rate of coronavirus infections in the state.

DeSantis was at The Villages on Monday for the first day of a new drive-through testing site in the center of the huge senior community. The center is unique in the entire country, he said, in that it will mostly be testing people with few or no symptoms.

The governor has taken criticism from Democrats such as state Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, and others for not issuing a broader order for nonessential workers to stay home, as New York, California, Illinois and other states have instituted in the past week.

But DeSantis, speaking to reporters on the polo ground at The Villages, said that while he’s ordered gyms, health clubs and bars closed statewide and closed restaurant dining rooms, he didn’t think a full stay-at-home order was necessary at the moment.

“We're looking at different options,” DeSantis said.

The number of infections in Florida passed 1,100 Monday. South Florida counties Broward and Miami-Dade, with 258 and 267 cases respectively, have seen stricter measures including closing non-essential businesses.

But there were still 20 counties with no infections and another 26 with less than 10, he said, and he wanted to see more testing results before applying those measures elsewhere in the state.

“One of the reasons why we wanted the testing is so that we’re actually doing this on good data,” DeSantis said. “I don’t want to put somebody in a position where some type of order and they comply, then they’re going to suffer financial catastrophes, health problems – there’s full chain reactions that can go with some of this stuff.”

He cited New York, which he said was seeing people fly to South Florida after the shelter-in-place order went down, adding that no state could prevent people from ignoring a widespread order. DeSantis has asked President Trump to limit the number of flights between New York and Florida.

“At the end of the day, you're going to have a group of people who are not going to comply and are going to put themselves first,” DeSantis said. “…[For] people here in The Villages and most of the people throughout the state who are seniors, you don't need any mandates. They will do what's recommended. They will protect themselves.”

Others, he said, “were just selfish. You shut down the bar, they go to a house party. You shut down the beach, they go to a sandbar.”

To those people ignoring recommendations to avoid large gatherings, “I would just say to those folks, you know, you need to cool it.”

Eskamani said on social media Sunday that several lawmakers besides herself had asked DeSantis about asked about sheltering in place during a phone call, only to be told he was “’analyzing his options’ [and] if we were to do it there would likely be 48 hours to prepare.”

Meanwhile, the center at The Villages, a huge, sprawling development for seniors, was expected to test about 2,000 people a week – many of whom, in the first few hours, drove through in golf carts.

But unlike other testing centers in Miami, Jacksonville and a soon to be opened location at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, the main purpose of this testing – done in cooperation with University of Florida Health – is to research how many asymptomatic or slightly symptomatic people were infected.

Only about 400 people of those tested this week at the Villages Polo Club will be those with symptoms, he said.

“We know that if someone is at a certain age group and has certain symptoms, they can come in and test,” DeSantis said. “But what about a step beyond that, maybe someone that would never go into the doctor who may be in this age group, maybe they carry very light symptoms, or maybe no symptoms at all. Can we detect this amongst that population? And so that is a very, very significant thing to understand.”

Anyone can go online to ufhealthcovid.com to sign up for the limited slots for testing, and people requesting testing do not have to live in The Villages.

The testing led to the surreal scene of UF Health students and medical professionals in full protective suits swabbing the inside of seniors’ noses as they drove up in their golf carts, wearing shorts.

“That wasn’t bad at all!” one man said after he was tested.

Elsewhere in The Villages, streams of golf carts headed out along roads to golf courses, one person per cart to keep social distancing. Golf was allowed under the provisions of DeSantis’s no-large-gatherings edict, he said.

slemongello@orlandosentinel.com