Scott warns Floridians that COVID-19 surge is real

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott discussed the state’s recent spike in COVID-19 cases Monday morning, a topic he’s been compelled to address more of late.

With daily record case counts commonplace in recent days, the former two-term Governor sounded caution about the virus, by no means resolved.

“Some might be tied to testing but it’s clearly not all tied to testing,” the Senator said on CNBC’s Squawk Box Monday morning.

“We clearly haven’t beat it. I think everybody is concerned when they read about the number of cases being up. The deaths aren’t growing like that, so that’s a positive.” Scott said.

When asked if there was a possibility for deaths to catch up to the surge in cases, the Senator demurred.

“You sure hope not,” Scott said, adding that “so far” the health care system has handled the surge.

“We clearly haven’t beat it. We’ve got to keep focusing … we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Scott said, noting the potential of the disease surging in places that may have thought they’d beaten the coronavirus.

“I hope we can stop this and it doesn’t come back in places where we’ve seen a downturn,” Scott added.

The Senator also weighed in on the ongoing feud between the current Florida Governor and the Governor of New York, who floated the idea of quarantining travelers from Florida because of COVID-19 fears.

While Gov. Ron DeSantis quipped that Gov. Andrew Cuomo shouldn’t sequester Floridians in “nursing homes,” a reference to an order earlier in the spring to release COVID discharges back to long-term care facilities, Scott steered clear of the personal attack.

“Every Governor’s got to figure out how to keep everybody … they’re responsible for the people of their state,” Scott said. “I think Gov. Cuomo’s got to make a decision about how you keep people safe and at the same time how you reopen your economy.”

Indeed, tough decisions loom, both for parents deciding whether to send their children to schools in the fall, and for potential travelers to the Republican National Convention.

“August is going to be a tough choice month for a lot of people,” Scott said about school reopening, which is a “tough job to figure out.”

“Masks at recess” was one potential precaution he endorsed.

Likewise, Scott sounded a note of caution regarding the Republican National Convention.

“I like everything to be in Florida, but we have to do it safely,” Scott said, offering yet another rebuke to the idea of a 2016 style convention with attendees shoulder to shoulder and not wearing masks.

“Let’s try to get back to normal as fast as possible but do it safely so we don’t have an uptick of cases,” Scott added.

A.G. Gancarski has been a working journalist for more than two decades. Gancarski has been a correspondent for FloridaPolitics.com since 2014. In 2018, he was a finalist for an Association of Alternative Newsweeklies "best political column." He can be reached at a.g.gancarski@gmail.com.