Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis orders statewide shutdown after insisting the White House hadn't advised him to take bold action
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican closely aligned with President Donald Trump, on Wednesday issued a stay-at-home order for the entire state to slow the spread of the coronavirus, effective Thursday.
Florida has become a hotspot of the outbreak in the US as DeSantis has repeatedly rejected calls to issue a statewide stay-at-home order, which he's described as a dictatorial move.
Republican Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, who was the first person in Miami-Dade County to test positive for the novel coronavirus, told Insider last week that he supported a statewide lockdown.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican closely aligned with President Donald Trump, on Wednesday issued a stay-at-home order for the entire state to slow the spread of the coronavirus, effective Thursday, after weeks of refusing to take bold measures.
Florida has become a hotspot of the outbreak in the US as DeSantis has looked to the White House for guidance on whether to issue a statewide order.
DeSantis repeatedly rejected calls to do so, citing a lack of widespread infection across the state and arguing that many people simply wouldn't heed the order.
On March 24, he said that such an order would make him "a dictator" putting Floridians "in prison in their homes."
The governor had attracted appeals from healthcare workers and Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden, to abandon his piecemeal approach and implement a statewide order.
On Tuesday, the governor said the White House's COVID-19 task force hadn't recommended he close his state.
"I'm in contact with them, and basically I've said, 'Are you guys recommending this?'" DeSantis said at a press conference. "The task force has not recommended that to me. Obviously, if they do, that is something that would carry a lot of weight with me."
Republican Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, who was the first person in Miami-Dade County to test positive for the novel coronavirus, told Insider last week that DeSantis should implement a statewide lockdown.
Suarez, 42, said that while it was "hard to second-guess" DeSantis' reluctance to follow other states in instituting shelter-in-place orders, "I personally would."
The mayor closed all nonessential businesses in Miami, the hardest-hit city in the state, on March 17, and he issued a stay-at-home order and a curfew last week.
"Every decision that I've made that has been thought to be premature or overly aggressive in a week or two weeks or three weeks has looked prophetic," Suarez told Insider by phone from his Miami home, where he was finishing a quarantine of more than two weeks.
Read the original article on Business Insider
