Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Friday that he was ending all restrictions on youth activities across the state, including camps and youth sports. The declaration was the governor’s latest move to wake Florida from its coronavirus-induced economic slumber.
However, the Republican governor said he would not prevent municipalities from imposing more restrictive rules.
“We believe that this makes sense based on the data and observed experience. We are not going to be instituting a lot of rules, or really any rules,” DeSantis said Friday, noting the Florida Department of Health would likely post a list of best practices to its website. “At the end of the day, we trust parents to be able to make decisions in conjunction with physicians.”
DeSantis’ announcement, which came at a news conference in Jacksonville, dovetailed with the plans of some Tampa Bay area officials, and conflicted with others.
Last week, Hillsborough County’s Department of Parks and Recreation cancelled its series of summer camps.
Hillsborough Commission Chairman Les Miller Jr. said the county was awaiting the official executive order from the governor’s office before deciding its next step. As of late Friday, DeSantis’ office had yet to post the executive order. Miller said county officials would follow the order. Pinellas officials said Friday they have a similar plan.
Miller, however, noted it could be difficult for Hillsborough to open its camps with additional potential restrictions such as social distancing, limited group sizes or masks.
“We’d have to put a lot of things in place before we open up the gates and say, “Come on in,’” said Miller.
On Thursday, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor announced the city was opening its summer camps starting June 1.
“We’re continuing ahead with our summer school because people can’t get back to work if they don’t have some type of care for their children,” Mayor Jane Castor said on a Cafe Con Tampa Facebook live stream Friday. “And so we realized that and we’re going to open up our summer camps.”
Ashley Bauman, Castor’s spokeswoman, said DeSantis’ announcement had little to do with the city’s plans to reopen summer camps because the city considers camps to be child care. That type of care was never banned under the governor’s previous restrictions, Bauman said.
Later Friday, Castor said in a statement she would “wholeheartedly support” the governor’s decision to reopen youth sports, provided it was done safely.
St. Petersburg announced last week that its summer camps will proceed at a limited capacity.
A spokeswoman for YMCA of the Suncoast and the Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA said the organizations would wait until the full executive order had been released to comment.
Related: Tampa Bay summer camps: Some are canceled, others set to open with changes
DeSantis contended that youth activities — schools, most notably — were closed in the first place because, in the early days of the pandemic, it was believed children would spread the disease to other, more vulnerable populations.
But children haven’t turned out to be very effective spreaders of the illness, the governor argued Friday.
Related: Florida coronavirus cases near 50,000, as state adds 46 deaths
“The data is pretty clear that, for whatever reason, kids don’t seem to get infected at the same rates that some other adults get infected,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis also noted that children are much less likely to face serious consequences from the novel coronavirus. In Florida, five in six coronavirus deaths have come from people 65 and over. Zero people under 25 have died from the disease, DeSantis no
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livingengine
3 years ago
credit: GARY VARVEL
Philip
3 years ago
I love my Gov. That said, South Florida (Broward/Dade) needs to reopen too! We’re still here @ phase 0. Wtf? Seriously. Wtf?
Why NOT the ‘and’? You are the grammar police now?
And I thought of you when I posted the movie “People Will Talk”, it really trashes doctors. The Cary Grant character did better as a doc when he called himself a butcher, and dispensed remedies with the meat. They trusted him more, and when they found out he was a real physician they ran him out of town! Funny.
Richard: I hope you like it, lots of fun. Find it on youtube. Another lock-down silly movie with Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers: “Monkey Business”. Silly, silly, silly! The exasperated boss says to the ditsy secretary Marylin Monroe: ‘Find Somebody to type this!’
Greg: Yeah, I’m not ‘absolutely confident’ either. Vaccines are VERY difficult to make, and if they were easy, colds and flus would be gone decades ago.
Yes, after they tax the hell out of you, they will then kill you in the old folks home
Drew the Infidel
3 years ago
The only things any of us will ever know about this pandemic is what it teaches us about itself. I am beginning to believe that we have exercised an overabundance of caution, though.
So what the aged and infirm are affected the most severely? When has that never been the case, with the exception of childhood diseases?
Shuttering churches while liquor stores and abortion clinics are operating full tilt? Bullsh*t!
What the Demo☭rat’s will do to create a Crisis and Destroy the Economy:
1. Start The Pandemic To Overthrow President Trump, So Demo☭rat’s Can Get Their Money And Power Back.
2. Use Fake News Media To Falsely Shout Virus, And Cause A Panic And Brainwash The Naive.
3. Pay Hospitals/Doctors More for Labeling Covid19 Death. Cancer=covid, run over by a train=covid, shot in the head=covid, Heart attack,=covid
4. Government Paychecks A Priority, With Or Without Working.
5. More Money To Universities, Museums & Piglosi’s Private Jet Rides & Ice Cream
6. Write Checks To Illegals, Release Felons, Open The Boarders
7. Impose Unconstitutional Orders, Forced Vaccinations
8. HOLD Relief Funds For Small Businesses That Are Forced to Shut Down
9. Close Churches, But Keep Mosques Open
10. Make Abortions And Pot a Priority
11. Implement Mail In Voting Fraud
12. Investigate And Blame President Trump
These Doctor’s falsifying cases/death certificates should be imprisoned.
Bernie Sanders, campaign goals have already been achieved.
Your last sentence perfectly sums up this virus scam.
Richard
3 years ago
I am a DIY kind of guy. I love spending time in my garage just making stuff. A lot of that stuff is wood, though I like to work on my cars too. I keep a 3M N95 dust mask hanging on my drill press at all times in case I put dust in the air or for when I’m sanding joint compound. I buy the ones with the valve so when you inhale the air goes through the mask and when you exhale your breath goes through the valve. This keeps your safety glasses from getting fogged up with your breath. It also renders the mask ineffective for the Covid scare. The air I exhale through the mask is unfiltered.
We were told that the masks would not protect us from contracting the disease and would only keep those infected from spreading it. But is that even true? Is inhaling that different from exhaling?
I got my Covid test result back today, negative. So why should I wear a mask?
Making stuff. I have a cabin in the Rockies. Lots of Lodgepole pines. A couple of years ago I bought an attachment for my chain saw that lets me cut flat boards from logs. I have a bunch of seasoned pine boards now that I want to make stuff out of. Everything from small boxes to furniture. I just need to sell my project car to make room to work.
Any good suggestions for a woodworking project? Anyone want to buy a Datsun 510?
Good suggestion but I don’t need an armoir or have a place to put one. I was thinking of a small table for my small dining room, a box, maybe speaker stands. Something rustic would be appropriate. I’m going to the cabin this summer, as I always do, and I may cut some thicker boards so I have some slabby ones. If I make a box it might be a presentation box for a handgun. I’m also interested in maybe trying some of that, I think it’s called milk stain in wacky colors. Like orange or green. I’ve never tried that before. Rockler has some interesting stuff and they have a store right next to my dentist.
“I don’t need an armoir or have a place to put one”
Yeah, but I need one. Send you the plans? :-))
“I think it’s called milk stain” Usually called pickling.
And did you notice when you take off your mask after sanding you have dust on your skin? Those are the particles that are smaller that the filter materials openings. Now imagine something that is ten time smaller that that dust particle. That is the size of this virus. A mask won’t stop it if you come around a person that is ill with the virus and that is coughing or sneezing constantly.
I think the idea is that the virus is a hitchhiker on aerosolized saliva so it’s not the individual virus cells that are intended to be blocked. But yeah, there is no evidence that masks are effective. When the pols and talking heads say they are following the data and the science they are simply lying. There is no data that shows that either masks or staying at home do any good but there is mounting data that shows that ending the stay at home orders helps.
Facts are pesky things, they tend to percolate to the top.
Edit: I also have a respirator for when I shoot lacquer. It’s a 3M product and it has twin carbon filters plus non-woven material filters. When I use it I can’t even smell the lacquer. Maybe those would be more effective?
And did you notice when you take off your mask after sanding you have dust on your skin? Those are the particles that are smaller that the filter materials openings. Now imagine something that is ten time smaller that that dust particle. That is the size of this virus. A mask won’t stop it if you come around a person that is ill with the virus and that is coughing or sneezing constantly.
John Acord
3 years ago
Se Santis, Kempand Abbott are the true HEROES of the faux pandemic. Al Americans owe them and others like them a great debt of gratitude is being true leaders in a time of horrific national crisis.
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