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Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday that beginning Monday, restaurants and stores will be allowed to reopen at 25 percent capacity — kicking off phase one of the state’s reopening plan.
The order will exclude Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, but the Republican governor said those counties will be able to enter phase one of the reopening plan “soon.”
During an afternoon press conference — as the state’s stay-at-home order expires Thursday — DeSantis called on Floridians to focus on “facts not fear.”
“There is a lot that’s been done to try to promote fear, to promote worst-case scenarios and to drive hysteria,” DeSantis said. “That worst-case thinking has not proven to be true.”
“We have been told over and over again that Florida was going to be like New York,” he continued, noting that his state’s coronavirus 1,218 deaths so far are barely a fraction of New York’s 22,897.
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DeSantis said that the media had an “unfortunate habit to conflate shelter-in-place with social distancing,” and said that his state could rebuild Florida’s foundations while protecting the most vulnerable.
