Alarmed by the governor’s ongoing mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing exclusively on treating Florida’s hospitalized victims rather than preventing the deadly infections in the first place, Senator Linda Stewart (D-Orlando) issued the following statement in response to his latest roundtable with Advent Health in Orlando:
“Governor DeSantis touted the state’s efforts to secure Remdesivir and convalescent plasma in order to treat patients with COVID-19. That’s great, but I’m reminded of the old saying: ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’ Of course we need the resources to treat positive patients, but the best course of action would be to reduce the positive infection rate, which is still out of control at 12.68 percent statewide, and hospital ICU’s are facing maximum capacity.
“We should not consider opening businesses or schools until we can get the positivity rate down to 5 percent. We need more aggressive testing with faster results, and a statewide mask order so we can look at a plan to safely re-open. Our economy will continue to suffer so long as the governor continues to bury his head in the sand, and the virus has free rein in our state.”
