TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday it would be good to test certain international travelers for COVID-19 as testing improves and becomes more available.
DeSantis pointed to recent issues with cruise ship passengers who had the virus, as he expressed a desire to require rapid testing of people from COVID-19 hot spots.
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“If you’re coming from like a Brazil and or coming from these other places, it would be good to have those tests available and done so that as people come to Florida, we know that people aren’t necessarily carrying the virus,” DeSantis said while attending an event highlighting a COVID-19 field hospital being set up by the U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers inside the Miami Beach Convention Center.
“Miami has gone through a lot here. Other parts of Florida have gone through a lot here,” DeSantis continued. “We’ve had a lot of dislocation economically. We’re trying to mitigate that, and we’re trying to bounce back from it. But to go through all that and then just have people coming in internationally or even domestically and seeding it all over again, I think is a problem.”
DeSantis, who has issued executive orders requiring travelers from the hot spots of New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Louisiana to self-quarantine for 14 days after arriving in Florida, said he intends to discuss his proposal with President Donald Trump.
“The fact of the matter is airplanes are what brought the virus to the United States,” DeSantis said, referring to the virus starting in China and then moving to other countries. “We’ve got to think smart about this. But I think we want to have people to be able to function as a society. But I think there are ways to do that much smarter.”