DeSantis: ‘Safer at Home’ is right for Southeast Florida, no mention of Tampa-St. Pete

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would sign an executive order, urging residents of four southeast Florida counties to stay at home through mid-May.

The order would codify a common set of rules regarding “safer at home” for Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties, DeSantis said. Those four counties are the epicenter of the crisis in Florida, with about 60 percent of the confirmed Covid-19 coronavirus cases in the state, he said.

“It affects us all. We’re all in this together,” said Dale Holness, mayor of Broward County. That sentiment was echoed by the other southeast Florida county officials who joined DeSantis for a Monday morning news conference at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.

DeSantis has rebuffed calls for a statewide stay at home order, and he made no mention of the Tampa-St. Petersburg area during the news conference Monday morning, nor at a separate news conference Monday afternoon.

Pinellas and Hillsborugh counties combined had 379 confirmed cases as of Monday morning, about 6.9 percent of the 5,473 cases statewide. Hillsborough ranked No. 5 among Florida’s counties for the most number of confirmed cases, while Pinellas ranked No. 8. Both local counties last week implemented similar, but not identical, “safer at home” orders.

St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman has called the lack of a statewide order “patchwork and piecemeal [that] endangers public health and hurts our economy for the long-term, rather than a statewide ‘stay at home’ that causes only short term pain.”

There was mixed reaction to DeSantis’ latest order on Twitter Monday morning.

“DeSantis, who has rejected the idea of a statewide stay-at-home order, said Monday’s action makes sense for the region because of the amount of cases concentrated there.”

Is he going to set up county checkpoints to prevent ppl from leaving this part of the state? What a mess. https://t.co/p4DCtmmbRk

— Rep. Anna V. Eskamani 🔨 (@AnnaForFlorida) March 30, 2020

@GovRonDeSantis Don’t shut down our state! Open if you can, Close if necessary. There will be more pain & suffering later if we completely destroy the economy. Flatten the curve, not the economy. I live on a golf course that is needlessly closed, should be limited, to save jobs.

— John Dougherty (@dough18) March 30, 2020

Pinellas County now has five deaths as a result of coronavirus, the Monday morning report from the state health department said. The most recent victim was a 58-year-old man whose death was reported Saturday. Victims range in age from 15 to 83, and there are 41 hospitalizations for confirmed coronavirus cases in the county.

NOTE: DeSantis said later Monday the south Florida order would apply through April 15.