Coronavirus Florida: DeSantis touts Trump tie in securing masks, as deaths climb

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis, a protégé of President Donald Trump, touted his White House connections Tuesday in helping secure 1 million N95 masks for Florida health care workers dealing with the coronavirus.

COVID-19 deaths in Florida surged Tuesday evening to 571 — up by 72 fatalities from the night before, while overall cases reached 21,628 — up a relatively low 609 for the day. But DeSantis played up the federal government’s role in relief efforts.

While a $50 million state bridge loan program shut down after awarding money to only 1,000 businesses out of 38,000 companies that applied, the governor touted results of a federal loan program that is part of the $2.2 trillion aid package approved by Congress and signed by Trump.

DeSantis said $12.5 billion has been approved to help more than 52,000 Florida businesses under the federal Paycheck Protection Program. While acknowledging that no one has received any money yet, DeSantis said, “I think this will be a really strong lifeline for Florida’s small businesses who have been really hit hard by the economic downturn.”

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Similarly, DeSantis sought to highlight his efforts in correcting problems for unemployed Floridians seeking help through the state’s Department of Economic Opportunity. DEO’s online CONNECT site has been glitch-ridden and swamped by hundreds of thousands of laid-off Floridians desperately trying to file claims.

Some succeed, although few report having yet received a payment — capped at $275 per week. But DeSantis said he’s thrown personnel at the problem, along with increasing CONNECT’s computer capacity.

“We want to turn this stuff around,” DeSantis said. “It usually takes three weeks (to approve a claim), but we’ve got to do better than that.”

DeSantis said he also has talked of making an arrangement for the 43,000 Disney World workers being furloughed April 19, to allow the company somehow to directly file claims for the employees.

“There’s a lot of this that’s being processed,” DeSantis said, despite the vast number of complaints.

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The governor sidestepped questions Tuesday about whether he thought that Trump, as the president has insisted, has authority to order states to reopen their economies, which drew pushback from many governors and constitutional scholars.

Instead, DeSantis pointed to his Trump alliance as helping Florida obtain needed hospital supplies. The president last week said that Minnesota-based 3M would produce 166.5 million masks over the next three months, after he had earlier accused the company of contributing to an equipment shortage for health care workers.

DeSantis also defended his own decision last week to declare WWE, or World Wrestling Entertainment, an essential business in Florida, allowing the company to resume live TV shows — with no audience — from its Orlando training facility.

The governor said restarting NASCAR racing soon, again without a crowd in attendance, is another goal.

“I think we do need to support sports — now we’re not going to have crowds out there,” he said. “But if NASCAR can do a race and televise it … I think that’s a good thing.”

Florida Surgeon General Scott Rivkees on Monday said that the state was at a “plateau, with a slight increase in the number of cases over the past week,”

Although each of Florida’s 67 counties is reporting at least one coronavirus case, the latest state Department of Health statistics show that almost 59% of cases are concentrated in South Florida’s Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

These counties also include 57% of deaths from the virus.

Supporting Rivkees’ view of a “plateau,” the state’s increase in coronavirus cases had hovered at just more than 1,000 additional patients in six of the past seven days. Tuesday’s 609-case increase is the lowest daily mark since March 26, according to DOH records.

The latest DOH figures show that more than 205,413 coronavirus tests have been admininstered across Florida, and 10.6% result in positive cases.

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A projection by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington on Monday predicted that Florida still has more than three weeks to go before reaching peak deaths per day.

That date is now put at May 3.

Total deaths for Florida are projected in the IHME model are put at 4,748, assuming that full distancing continues through at least May. Rivkees said Monday that Floridians should be prepared to continue social distancing for a year.

State Division of Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz said Monday that the expected peak in terms of cases of the coronavirus has been moved back in a forecast model from April 24 to April 25.

“We continue to watch the models as new data is gathered, and prepare accordingly,” he said.

DeSantis also said the state is stepping up testing at nursing homes, which have become hot spots for disease transmission. DeSantis said four-person medical teams, supplemented by members of the Florida National Guard, have begun issuing tests to “all willing individuals in each facility, both staff and residents.”

DeSantis said the testing will home in on staff, many not showing any signs of the illness, but considered the likely carriers of the virus to older residents. The state for weeks has blocked all other visitors to nursing homes.