Move to quarantine New Yorkers prevented deaths in Florida, DeSantis says.

Says quarantining fleeing New Yorkers prevented deaths

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday there is “no doubt” that his order eight weeks ago requiring people fleeing the New York region to self-quarantine saved lives in Florida.

“I quarantined them in March. And everyone in New York media was blowing a gasket [asking] ‘How could you do this?’” DeSantis said at a news conference.

“That was the right decision,” DeSantis said. “Had we not done the quarantine, you would have had way more cases, hospitalizations, the whole nine yards. I have no doubt that that quarantine saved lives. I think it dissuaded some from coming down. But I think the ones that did, we were able to process and screen. And I think it was effective.”

The order, requiring 14 days of self isolation, is still in force.

It’s reasonable to assume that the governor’s order quarantining people from the New York area had a positive effect in Florida, said Jose Szapocznik, an epidemiologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. There is, however, no way to prove it.

“Given that New York is the most severe hot spot in the nation, curtailing traffic from New York to South Florida was one of the things that would contribute to reducing the number of cases and reducing the number of deaths,” he said. “It certainly would be a contributor. There may be a lot of factors at play, but that is probably one.”

South Florida has such long and deep ties to the region that it’s called the sixth borough (in addition to the official ones — Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island — that make up the city).

DeSantis said Monday that South Florida was getting “inundated,” and has previously said he believes that’s a central reason why the region is the state’s coronavirus hot spot.

As of Monday, South

Florida accounts for 57.4 percent of Florida’s 46,442 cases and 56.2 of the state’s 1,997 deaths. The three counties account for 28.9% of the Florida population.

DeSantis backed up his assertion that there was a problem that needed attention with reporting from an unlikely source for a governor who has been critical of news media reporting of the coronavirus pandemic: the New York Times.

He didn’t specifically mention the newspaper or any other specific source for, but at his Monday news conference in Orlando, he said, “you may have seen there have been things that have come out recently about where did New Yorkers flee when the epidemic hit. And the No. 1 state that they fled to [was] right here in the state of Florida.”

On Saturday, the New York Times published an analysis of data gleaned from people’s requests to have their mail forwarded, an indication of people leaving for an extended period.

The top destination outside other places in the New York metropolitan area: Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach.

On March 23, DeSantis ordered people coming to Florida from the Tri-State area — New York, New Jersey and Connecticut

— would have to self-quarantine for 14 days.

“As soon as that shelter in place order came down from the New York governor, man, the flights took off. People just got out of Dodge,” he said when he announced the order in March. He said that was undermining Florida’s efforts to combat the pandemic.

New York, Connecticut and New Jersey account for 46.8% of the 89,636 U.S. deaths reported on Monday.

Over about three weeks from mid-March to early April:

Many businesses began having employees work from home in mid-March and Broward and Miami-Dade counties began issuing a series of orders closing down more businesses and other activities, eventually telling residents to stay home.

On March 17, DeSantis closed down bars and nightclubs and limited restaurant capacity.

On March 23, DeSantis announced the order on self-isolation of people from the New York area and screening of air passengers.

On March 27, he added the Louisiana coronavirus hot zone and the next day the Highway Patrol began screening motorists entering the Florida from “areas with substantial community spread.” screening of air passengers to Florida.

On March 26, Broward and Miami-Dade

counties issued stayat-home orders.

On April 3, DeSantis’ statewide stay-at-home order went into effect.

Szapocznik, past chairman of UM’s Department of Public Health Sciences, said with so many steps implemented to slow the spread of the coronavirus, it isn’t possible to separate each one and say precisely what impact each one had.

A late-March projection from a widely cited model at the Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation at the University of Washington, said 174 Floridians could be dying every day by May 3.

After efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the state hasn’t come close to that. On May 3, there were 40 deaths. The only day this month there were more than 50 was on May 4, when the state reported 57 coronavirus deaths.

Steven Rosner, a resident of Fresh Meadows in Queens, is ready for an end to the “harsh Florida quarantine order.” He wanted to visit Jacksonville Beach for a few days during the second week of June but “certainly NOT if I am expected to lock myself in a motel room for the duration,” he said Monday via email.