Gov. DeSantis believes COVID-19 case numbers will come down before August

ORLANDO, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis said he feels confident case numbers will come down before the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville in August.

To bring numbers back down, the governor has been asking people to avoid the three Cs: closed spaces with poor ventilation, crowded spaces with many people and close-contact settings.

DeSantis said he’s confident in the state’s ability to safely gather thousands in Jacksonville despite the convention being indoors and without a mask requirement, as President Donald Trump’s campaign has requested.

Read: Orlando bar owners react to statewide ban on selling alcohol for on-site consumption

Two things DeSantis said are critical to stopping the spread of the virus: “If you follow the guidelines, you’re fine. You just gotta be careful and you gotta take certain steps to be able to do it. And I think what they saw with some of those things was, you know, totally everything out the window.”

DeSantis said he didn’t seem convinced it would be easy to get younger people and all bar owners to do what needs to be done.

“You can’t control this,” DeSantis said. “They’re younger people. They’re going to do what they’re going to do. The pubs was mostly a matter of administration. There was no way to ensure compliance because it was so widespread noncompliant and I said, ‘Do what you gotta do to ensure compliance.’”

Read: Florida reports more than 8,500 new COVID-19 cases, statewide cases surpass 140K

Desantis signaled that he’d like to get bars compliant and back open to avoid potentially riskier gatherings of young people.

Bar owners following the rules and local lawmakers said for that to happen the state would have to punish rule-breakers in a way they didn’t seem willing to until case totals started breaking records every day.

Video: Florida reports more than 8,500 new COVID-19 cases, statewide cases surpass 140K The Florida Department of Health reported more than 8,500 new COVID-19 cases Sunday, a day after the state set a record in daily case numbers.

Cox Media Group