Florida ready for coronavirus, governor says. He won’t say how many have been tested.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday that the state is well-prepared to handle any cases of coronavirus, the illness originating in China that has sickened more than 81,000 people worldwide and has killed nearly 3,000. He and other state officials repeatedly emphasized that there have been no confirmed cases in the state.

Floridians should wash their hands, cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze, stay home from work if they’re sick and get their flu shot, said Surgeon General Scott Rivkees. Although the flu shot won’t prevent coronavirus — there is currently no vaccine for the illness — the symptoms are similar, and those who get influenza may worry they have coronavirus, he said.

The state has created a web page where officials said they will publish any new information on the epidemic. But there is one piece of data they are declining to share: how many people in Florida have been tested for the virus.

DeSantis was grilled by reporters at Thursday’s news conference about the omission, which he said is being made to follow the law.

“I don’t think I’m allowed to go into the numbers,” he said. “I actually wanted to give all the numbers but they pointed me to the regulation of the statute.”

According to a rule in Florida Administrative Code, information about epidemiological investigations will only be released “if determined as necessary by the State Surgeon General” based on certain criteria, such as whether the disease is highly infectious, there is a potential for future outbreaks and there would be an inability to identify specific people based on that information.

Rivkees said those criteria have not been not met because coronavirus is only considered “moderately infectious” by the state and there is a low risk of future outbreaks without any confirmed cases in Florida.

The testing itself is tricky. States like Florida were given kits by the federal government so they could perform tests for the coronavirus. But those were faulty, and so all testing samples — such as oral or nasal swabs, or saliva — collected at local hospitals or county health departments must be sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The results come back three to five days later.

DeSantis said they are awaiting new testing kits, but that an epidemiology team in Florida’s Department of Health has been working to prepare since early January.

“Our response will evolve based on updated information and guidance from our nation’s top experts in communicable diseases,” he said. “All levels of government have been engaged.”

For now, the federal government is declaring that no foreigners who have visited China within the past 14 days are allowed to enter the United States. All flights containing Americans returning from China are being directed to 11 international airports, none of which are in Florida, DeSantis said.

For flights from the Hubei province of China where the coronavirus is especially concentrated, passengers are required to be quarantined for two weeks at a federal facility. Everyone else flying in from China will receive a health screening before they are allowed to return home, but are asked to “self-isolate” for 14 days, and are contacted by their local Florida Department of Health officials for monitoring.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, self-isolation includes staying home except to get medical treatment, and remaining in separate rooms away from other people and pets in the same home.

When asked about people returning on flights from other areas that are also experiencing high volumes of the sickness, such as South Korea and Italy, DeSantis said those decisions are made by the federal government.

Shortly after DeSantis’ news conference, two Democratic state senators, Sen. José Javier Rodríguez of Miami and Victor Torres of Orlando, held a last-minute conference of their own, calling on DeSantis to be more transparent about how many tests have been performed and where.

Rodríguez emphasized that he is confident in the state’s preparedness, and claimed he’s not trying to make this into a political battle. But the DeSantis administration’s interpretation of the law is “new” and “incorrect” when it comes to withholding top-line numbers, he said.

During the Zika outbreaks of 2015 and 2016 the state frequently published how many specimens had been tested.

“Information bolsters confidence in our system,” Rodríguez said. “Making sure that everybody is aware of the aggregate data is extremely important in preserving that confidence.”

He said he will be filing an amendment to a bill in the Senate Rules committee on Monday that would tweak the law to make it clear that they cannot withhold the number of people who’ve been tested.

This story was originally published February 27, 2020 at 12:43 PM with the headline "Florida ready for coronavirus, governor says. He won’t say how many have been tested.."