A limited but rocky rollout of the Florida economy unfolded last week as Gov. Ron DeSantis was bombarded with conflicting advice about how best to protect Floridians during the coronavirus pandemic.
The reopening, which involved retail businesses such as restaurants operating at 25 percent occupancy, did not include hard-hit southeastern counties such as Miami-Dade. And personal-services firms such as hairdressers and gyms remain closed.
Though DeSantis said he was taking a phased, data-driven approach, a state lawmaker said he would likely file civil litigation challenging the governor’s Safer at Home order. State. Rep. Anthony Sabatini (R-Clermont) argued that the order violated business owners’ constitutional rights, was arbitrary and lacked a rational basis.
“We should never have locked down the state and caused this recession,” Sabatini told the Florida Record.
Sabatini joined a legal team representing the owner of Kitchen Table Games in Pinellas Park, which had been criminally charged with violating the Safer at Home order. The prosecutor, however, dropped the case May 1, and now the plaintiff is considering civil litigation challenging the statewide order, the state lawmaker said.
If the criminal case had proceeded, “various parts of the executive order would have been struck down or made invalid by an order of a judge,” Sabatini said, adding that the order violated the concept of equal protection in its designation of essential and nonessential businesses.
The opening of the state’s economy is proceeding too slowly, according to the state representative, who said that Florida’s vulnerable populations could be protected while the rest of the population gets back to work.
“Eighty-five percent of the population is not vulnerable and essentially shouldn’t be concerned with catching this virus,” he said.
New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo reported this past week that 66 percent of new hospitalizations in that state had been sheltering in place and following the government’s social-distancing advice.
“There is no evidence to show you could really stop the spread (of the virus) entirely,” Sabatini said. Lock-downs can slow the spread of COVID-19, but they may only delay the virus’s inevitable transit through society, he added.
Sweden kept its economy largely open, perhaps leading to a buildup of immunity in the population, he said. Sweden has seen a large downturn in daily COVID-19 deaths in recent weeks.
“I think it’s really a silent majority who agree with me,” Sabatini said.
Others, however, say that Florida may be moving too quickly in jump-starting its economy. Congressional Democrats representing Florida this week sent DeSantis a letter warning that public health could suffer because the state lacks widespread testing, contact-tracing personnel and methods to isolate high-risk people.
“A rushed reopening may very well serve only to increase the human loss caused by an already historic public health crisis, as states moving forward with reopening are seeing increases in new COVID-19 cases,” the letter signed by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other federal lawmakers states.
But business groups such as the Florida Vacation Rental Management Association have penned different messages to the governor. The state’s emergency orders have been posted at the last minute, giving business owners no time to plan ahead, the association said in a May 4 letter to DeSantis.
“For the past 38 days, vacation rentals throughout Florida have been completely shut down with no clear reason why they have been singled out,” the letter states. “No fact-based explanations have been provided to justify this overall suspension, no science and no guidance from health officials.”
Denis Hanks, the association’s executive director, told the Record that the Governor’s Office has not provided a single response to such concerns over the past 40 days.
Other observers, however, recognize that DeSantis has been dealing with pressures from all sides as he worked on a plan to focus on both public safety and help for a battered economy.
“The governor has a very difficult balancing act,” Dr. Larry Barton, a professor of crisis management and public safety at the University of Central Florida, told the Record. “By any standard, Florida is an extremely complex state.”
The state has the second oldest population in the nation, and it relies heavily on tourism and agricultural production, according to Barton, who noted that Florida’s transportation and density patterns are quite unlike New York City.
He credited Floridians for keeping themselves informed about the pandemic early on and taking defensive action voluntarily.
“What I observed in terms of research and anecdotally was that people were hunkering down two weeks before the governor’s (Safer at Home) order,” Barton said. “... Floridians were acting on their own wisdom.”
State leaders have been dealing with a situation that is unparalleled and unprecedented, and they continue to do so, he said.
“Decisions had to be made, just as a good soldier or a nurse has to make a decision with the information you have at your disposal at that time,” Barton said.
But the reopening’s rollout has not been anything spectacular, he said. Employers who gave laid-off workers at least three days notice of reopening plans fared much better than those who told workers about their plans only 24 hours prior to reopening their doors, according to Barton.
Some employees have been resistant to returning to their jobs immediately due to children being at home or other family commitments, he said.
“I would rate it a solid mediocre at best,” Barton said of this week’s reopening. “It has not been a hugely successful Olympian event.”
He also criticized the state for its inability to process unemployment claims and financially help workers desperate to survive during the coronavirus shutdown.
“The only embarrassment that I’ve seen so far for Florida was the abysmal management of the unemployment claims,” Barton said. “That is completely unacceptable.”