ORLANDO, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Saturday discussed Florida's efforts to battle the coronavirus from a hair salon in Orlando.
The governor, who was joined by Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, discussed the decline of positive COVID-19 patients in the state.
"As of last night, Florida had 581 COVID patients in the ICU statewide," he said. "That's the lowest we've had in a month, and for a state of almost 22 million people, that's obviously a very, very small number of patients."
He also talked about the increase of testing availability in the state.
"We've tested almost 420,000 people now in the state of Florida," he said. "We have the seven drive-thru sites that have been operating for a while, including the one in the Orange County Convention Center, but we're adding Pensacola, which had a soft open yesterday, large open today. We're adding Sarasota/Bradenton drive-thru site, Naples/Fort Myers drive-thru site, and then a hybrid drive-thru and walk-up site at the Miami Beach Convention Center. So you're actually going to have more opportunities if you want to test, because we just feel -- if you're putting people back to work and maybe a worker has some symptoms, they're hopefully in these communities -- an easy way to do it."
DeSantis announced earlier this week that the state would reopen Monday, although Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties -- which have the most confirmed cases -- are exempt.
Watch his full remarks in the video player below.
