![Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a news conference held Monday at Tampa General Hospital. [DIRK SHADD | Times]](https://arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tbt.s3.amazonaws.com/public/EOY2KTJTQBDNVKOI6XX26ZLFNE.JPG)
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has repeatedly sought to downplay the virus.
The Sun Belt states have been especially hard hit as the virus has surged across most of the country this summer, forcing renewed shutdowns and public health warnings. But Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican and favorite ally of President Donald Trump, has become a poster child for mishandling the crisis—holding out against issuing a stay-at-home order and then rushing the reopenings, even as experts warned that testing in the state was still insufficient.
Similar to Trump, DeSantis had repeatedly sought to downplay the virus, initially blaming an increase in the number of cases on increased testing, an assertion that experts said was not enough to explain the rise in infections and hospitalizations.
“A new case is just a positive test. It doesn’t mean somebody’s sick,” the governor said in June. “The number of cases is not necessarily something that’s going to tell you what the burden of the disease is.”
At one point, he suggested the media was to blame for failing to adequately cover the pandemic.
He has also been accused of sidelining the state's public health officials. In May, he fired the state's top data scientist who was charged with tracking infections. Rebekah Jones, who worked at the Florida Department of Health, said the governor had pressured her to manipulate the data to support the reopening. She said when she refused, she was let go.
At first, DeSantis tried to dismiss the complaint, saying he was under the impression from her supervisor that she was "tired and needed a break." Later, his office issued a statement saying that Jones "exhibited a repeated course of insubordination" and had herself tampered with the data.
Jones later created her own dashboard.
The state only began releasing hospitalization data on coronavirus patients on July 10th.
In keeping with Trump's agenda, DeSantis has also vowed to fully reopen schools, saying last month, "If you can do Home Depot, if you can do Walmart, if you can do these things, we absolutely can do the schools."
To date, DeSantis has resisted calls to issue a statewide mandate for wearing face masks in public, although almost one third of counties require them in certain settings.
DeSantis is also making a high-stakes gamble on school openings, with superintendents pressured into decisions that some fear will result in coronavirus outbreaks. DeSantis this week forced one of the country's largest school districts to reopen campuses by the end of August, threatening to withhold up to $200 million in state aid.
The Republican’s administration told Hillsborough County — the eighth-largest system in the country — that it would lose state aid if it did not drop plans to reopen schools remotely for the first month of the 2020-2021 school year. So the county revised its plan and will start with just one week of remote learning. Then parents will choose whether to send their children into school buildings.
“It was very clear. If we do not follow their emergency order, we will be financially hindered,” Hillsborough Superintendent Addison Davis said Thursday. “We would forfeit close to $200 million. We just can’t do that. That would bankrupt us. It would put us in a terrible situation financially.”