Florida Freedom: Ron DeSantis Lifts Statewide COVID Restrictions
(Chaz Anon) Freedom is back in the sunny state of Florida! Republican governor Ron DeSantis announced on Friday that he was lifting the statewide restrictions on restaurants and other businesses, a move to completely reopen the state’s economy.
The governor said businesses including restaurants, bars, and nightclubs will be able to open at full capacity if they choose, but he still recommends social-distancing protocols for those with vulnerabilities. He cited reduced coronavirus hospitalizations as well as the economy strain on the state as the reasons for his decision.
DeSantis recommended that residents age 65 and older should continue to practice social distancing, though some public interaction is encouraged.
In a press conference DeSantis said, “If you go back in March, we were told 15 days to slow the spread,” and, “Now people are saying, ‘hey even if there is a vaccine, it’s still going to take another year before you can operate appropriately,’ and I don’t think that’s viable, I don’t think that’s acceptable.”
According to the new regulations, all state-level restrictions on business activity will be removed. Local governments are forbidden from closing businesses and from reducing restaurant capacity below 50 percent, and are prevented from issuing fines to residents over violations of coronavirus-mitigation protocols.
According to the New York Times:
Florida has recorded over 695,000 coronavirus cases since the onset of the pandemic, with 13,915 deaths among residents. The number of reported cases peaked over the summer during an outbreak seen across states in the Sun Belt, with a seven-day average of 12,000 new cases in mid-July. However, the current seven-day average now stands at about 2,600 new cases.
DeSantis’s decision came after he attended a roundtable with medical experts from Harvard and Stanford Universities, which presented the case for opening businesses.
“At this point, we know that the benefits of a lockdown are small….All they do is push cases off into the future; it doesn’t actually prevent the disease from happening. And the costs are absolutely catastrophic, enormous,” said Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford.
Florida Democrats continued to push corporate propaganda while accusing the Republicans of misinforming.
“The governor’s roundtable today was little more than a collection of like-minded individuals echoing the governor’s push for herd immunity policies. There would be no need for lockdowns had he endorsed mandatory masks and widespread, more robust testing,” State Senator Lori Berman said in a statement.
