Governor Ron DeSantis decided to partially reopen the state of Florida today by allowing citizens to go to parks and beaches in Jacksonville. People waited no time to flock to both places and just hours later it was reported a record 1,413 Coronavirus cases were confirmed just yesterday.
Although governors have control over when they decide to reopen their states, Trump's three phase plan at least requires states to be on a 14 consecutive day decline in confirmed cases before even entering into phase one.
If you missed it, the three phases are as follows:
- Strict social distancing for everyone in public. Gatherings of 10 or more people should be avoided and nonessential travel is discouraged.
- People should still maximize social distancing, but gatherings of 50 or more should be avoided. Travel can resume.
- Back to our regularly scheduled program with any new cases being identified and isolated.
In this plan, 14 successful consecutive days should be completed prior to moving to the next phase.
So Florida may have jumped the gun a bit. No word on if they will go back to a shut down, but as far as we are concerned here in Virginia, Governor Northam has no plans to reopen until we start seeing a decline in cases.
"We're not there yet. Once we are, just like everyone, I want to get back to being as near normal as we can as soon as possible but we have to be patient," Northam said. "Otherwise, cases will spike, we'll be right back where we started and all of the sacrifices people have already made will have been for nothing."