Gov. Ron DeSantis Blames COVID-19 Rise On ‘Overwhelmingly Hispanic’ Workers
MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA – APRIL 08: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center on April 08, 2020 in Miami Beach, Florida. Gov. DeSantis spoke about the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers converting the convention center into a field hospital with 400 regular hospital beds and 50 ICU beds, with the ability to scale up to 1,000 beds if needed, as the region prepares for a possible surge of coronavirus patients. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis claims that “overwhelmingly Hispanic” farmworkers and day laborers are driving the state's record surge in coronavirus cases, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
DeSantis said Tuesday during a press conference in Tallahassee that cramped living and working conditions for migrant workers and Hispanic construction workers are partly to blame.
But farmworkers and industry associations argue that resources and testing came too late to those communities.
“Some of these guys go to work in a school bus, and they are all just packed there like sardines, going across Palm Beach County or some of these other places, and there’s all these opportunities to have transmission,” DeSantis said.
Florida broke its daily record again Friday morning, this time by more than 600 cases, according to WFTV9. Florida health officials reported 3,822 new cases of the virus on Friday as well as 43 death across the state.
Friday’s numbers bring the total number of cases in the state to 89,748 and the death toll to 3,104. See a county-by-county breakdown of cases below, and click here for an interactive map of cases statewide.
