BRADENTON – Gov. Ron DeSantis traveled to the Suncoast today and talked coronavirus testing and reopening schools at a press conference at Blake Medical Center
DeSantis met with health officials at Blake Med in Bradenton and told reporters the state continues to monitor the high percent positivity among new coronavirus tests. On Friday, 12.64% of people tested for the first time tested positive.The percent positivity has averaged 14.75% since the beginning of July.
The state has tested 2.4 million people since the pandemic began – one of every nine people in Florida. The governor also touched on the issue of wait times for the results.
“We want to be able to try to figure out how we can get people results back as quickly as possible. We’re focusing that on symptomatic people, I mean most of the people that are coming to test, don’t necessarily have symptoms, they kind of just want to know if they have it,” said DeSantis. “Well, if somebody has symptoms, were going to work on dedicating some of the drive thru lanes for those people then having them do the self swab and sending it to some of the companies that may be able to turn it around a little quicker.”
DeSantis then discussed the decision to reopen schools in the fall. He said the risk of coronavirus for students is quote: “incredibly low.”
While students remain at a relatively low risk from the virus, many are concerned about the family members that could catch something their kid brings home from the school.
