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While New York, California and other states shutter their economies to keep the coronavirus at bay, Gov. Ron DeSantis is refusing to follow the herd.

His cure-can’t-be-worse-than-the-disease approach has put the Republican governor under a glaring spotlight locally and nationally as cases of the virus in Florida surge past 1,400. It’s a philosophy that aligns DeSantis with other conservatives, including President Donald Trump and Florida House Speaker Jose Oliva, a Republican with a strong libertarian bent.

On Tuesday, state Senate Democrats began papering the governor’s office with letters urging him to issue a shelter-in-place order.

“That is the dumbest s--- I have heard in a long time,” said state Sen. Oscar Braynon (D-Miami Gardens). “This is a day-by-day crisis. Italy damn near saw 1,000 people die in one day, and there are people proclaiming we got this and have it solved in 15 days?”

DeSantis has grown only more defiant. On Monday, instead of buckling to political pressure to issue a shelter-in-place order, he said he would restrict visitors coming into the state from coronavirus hot spots including New York. And he’s now literally ignoring pleas from Florida Democrats to be more aggressive.

Nearly 20 governors across the state have issued some form of a stay-at-home order. DeSantis, by contrast, has taken a more piecemeal approach, shut down parks, movie theaters, gyms and most businesses and some beaches. He‘s waived work requirements for federal assistance. DeSantis has also asked the Trump administration for a major disaster declaration, a move supported by Florida GOP Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott.

But he also has overtly pushed back against a broad shelter-in-place order. Instead, on Monday he announced that anyone flying from New York, New Jersey or Connecticut to Florida would have to undergo a 14 day self-quarantine, an announcement that drew criticism from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said it was not the “most enlightened approach.”

“When you are ordering people to shelter in place, you are consigning probably hundreds-of-thousands of Floridians to lose their jobs,” DeSantis said Monday in remarks live streamed from the governor’s office. “You are throwing their lives into potential disarray.”

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Nearly 20 governors across the state

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Gov. Ron DeSantis is ordering all Floridians to stay at home beginning at 12:01 a.m. Friday, a decision that came after mounting pressure from health officials to lock down the state in the fight against the coronavirus.

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Originally posted by Steve Miller:
Bless his heart.

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Originally posted by QuirtEvans:

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Nearly 20 governors across the state

That's some state.