TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Gov. Ron DeSantis lifted all restrictions on restaurants and other businesses in Florida on Friday, and banned local fines against people who refuse to wear masks as he seeks to reopen the state's economy amid the pandemic.
Meanwhile, confirmed cases of the virus in the U.S. hit another milestone -- 7 million -- according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University, though the real number of infections is believed to be much higher.
DeSantis acknowledged that the pandemic is far from over, but he said the threat in Florida has eased and the time has come to reopen for business after six months of "people twisting in the wind."
The governor's announcement allows restaurants across the state to immediately reopen at full capacity -- and prevents cities and counties from ordering them to close or operate at less than half-capacity, unless they can justify a closure for economic or health reasons.
"We're not closing anything going forward," DeSantis said, while insisting that the state is prepared if infections increase again.
The governor, however, allowed local governments to limit bars to 50% capacity, but added that he was "not going to stand in the way" of allowing them to fully reopen.
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As part of his reopening plan, the governor barred cities and counties from imposing fines on people who violate social distancing rules or don't wear masks. His order virtually nullifies local ordinances put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
"I think we need to get away from trying to penalize people for not social distancing and work with people constructively," DeSantis said.
Florida Democrats have bemoaned the governor's push to reopen as hasty.
"No one is advocating for a full-scale lockdown in Florida. But we have been and continue to ask for common-sense prevention measures such as face masks, which are essential to preventing further spread," state Sen. Audrey Gibson said Thursday.
Some local officials appealed to the governor for continued authority to control the outbreak.
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"We're hoping that the governor will allow us to have deeper restrictions than the rest of the state. We have a greater spread of the virus in South Florida than other parts of the state," Broward County Mayor Dale Holness told WLRN, a public radio station in Miami.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said in a statement Friday that DeSantis' order allows him to continue restricting restaurants to half their capacity. But he acknowledged the county will no longer fine people for not wearing masks.
Gimenez said he was consulting with the county attorney regarding the mask mandate at businesses to ensure compliance with the new order.
LONG A HOT SPOT
Florida has long been a covid-19 hot spot, with nearly 700,000 confirmed virus cases since the pandemic began in March. Nearly 14,000 Floridians have died.
The governor closed bars and nightclubs on St. Patrick's Day due to the outbreak, and days later restricted restaurants to takeout dining. Amusement parks ground to a halt.
The closures battered the economy, leaving hundreds of thousands of Floridians unemployed. Since March 15, More than 2.5 million Floridians have sought unemployment benefits.
DeSantis slowly reopened the state for business since then, allowing restaurants and bars to reopen at half-capacity, while deferring to local officials who advocated reopening more slowly in the pandemic's epicenters in South Florida.
The governor had resisted imposing a statewide mask mandate, but had allowed cities and counties to do so and impose stricter measures than he was willing to do, including closing beaches and public venues to keep the virus from spreading.
The governor's action does not preclude private businesses, such as grocery stores and sports venues, from requiring masks. In February, Florida will again host the Super Bowl.
DeSantis has been under pressure to revive the economy. As the state has reopened, he and tourist-dependent businesses have been trying to woo back visitors.
Like President Donald Trump, DeSantis has questioned the efficacy of closures, arguing that states that had shut down more aggressively, including California, have fared no better.
"The state of Florida is probably the most open big state in the country," he said Friday.
New infections in Florida have steadily declined since the state's caseload peaked in July.
Florida added 2,847 confirmed coronavirus cases Friday, pushing the statewide total since March 1 to 695,887. The state also announced 120 new virus deaths, pushing its total to 14,038. Hospitalizations declined by 34 to 2,137 people.
SURGES AND SKEPTICISM
Earlier in the week, the country surpassed 200,000 deaths from covid-19 as the outbreak intensified in the U.S. heartland.
The spike across the Midwest as well as parts of the West has set off alarms at hospitals, schools and colleges.
Wisconsin averaged more than 2,000 new cases a day over the past week, compared with 675 three weeks earlier. Hospitalizations in the state are at their highest level since the outbreak took hold in the U.S. in March.
Utah has seen its average daily case count more than double from three weeks earlier. Oklahoma and Missouri are regularly recording 1,000 new cases a day, and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a staunch opponent of mask rules, tested positive this week. Kansas and Iowa are also witnessing a spike in cases. And South Dakota and Idaho are seeing high rates of tests coming back positive.
The U.S. is averaging more than 40,000 new confirmed cases a day. While that number is dramatically lower than the peak of nearly 70,000 over the summer, the numbers are worrisome nonetheless.
In Springfield, Mo., hospitals are starting to fill up with covid-19 patients and the city has seen a big spike in deaths over the past month.
Amelia Montgomery, a nurse working in the covid unit at Cox South Hospital in Springfield, describes a routine in which family members of patients call medical staff daily and question whether their loved ones truly have the virus and the veracity of positive test results.
"We know what covid looks like now after six months of dealing with it," Montgomery said. "It is like beating your head against a brick wall when you are constantly having patients, family members of these patients and the community argue so intensely that it is not real or we are treating it in the wrong way."
The skepticism about the virus coincides with deep frustration over mask requirements in the Midwestern cities that have them.
Mike Cooper, 59, a sign shop owner from the Branson, Mo., area, is among those who have grown weary of virus restrictions that he sees as government overreach. He has no doubts about the seriousness of the virus, but says the financial toll of business and school shutdowns creates its own set of health problems, such as alcoholism, suicide and depression. "Financial ruin kills people too," he said.
"To me, flatten the curve means extend the plague. Flatten the curve means you are just going to kill the same number of people over a longer period of time, so they are going to extend the plague," Cooper said.
ACROSS THE U.S.
• Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced that he and his wife have tested positive, though he said he has no symptoms. Northam, a Democrat, is also a doctor and usually wears a mask in public.
• Two former administrators of a Massachusetts veterans home where nearly 80 people died were charged with neglect over their handling of the outbreak. They could go to prison if convicted. It is believed to be the nation's first criminal case brought against nursing home officials for actions during the crisis.
• In New York City, which beat back the virus after a disastrous spring, four Orthodox Jewish schools were closed for violating social-distancing rules. Health officials said if virus cases in these neighborhoods continue to build, the city might roll back its reopening in some places and require businesses to close again.
• Minnesota officials have stopped a covid-19 testing study after multiple reports that state and federal public health workers were greeted by racial and ethnic slurs as they went door-to-door. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pulled federal surveyors out of Minnesota this week after they experienced verbal abuse and intimidation. In Eitzen, along the Iowa border, one survey team was boxed in by two cars and threatened by three men, including one with a gun.
• At the home of the University of Oklahoma, the Norman City Council voted 5-3 this week to require that masks be worn indoors at house parties if more than 25 people are present. The ordinance passed over objections from members of the public. "You can make any law that you want to. You come into my house telling me that I got to wear this stupid thing and you're going to have a firefight on your hands," said Josh Danforth, holding a mask, who identified himself as an Iraq war veteran.
• A federal judge has ordered the White House to begin providing sign-language interpretation at White House coronavirus briefings starting Thursday. The order, issued by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, follows a lawsuit filed by the National Association of the Deaf and five deaf Americans last month to include American Sign Language interpretation at the briefings. The White House and plaintiffs have "largely agreed on all terms" to resolve the matter, according to the order.
'MIDDLE OF THE FIGHT'
Fewer than 1 in 10 Americans showed signs of past infection with the novel coronavirus as of late July, suggesting that most of the country may still be vulnerable to infection, according to one of the largest studies of its kind published Friday in the journal The Lancet.
That proportion is an estimate based on the percentage of dialysis patients whose immune systems produced coronavirus antibodies. It does not indicate exactly how many Americans may be immune to the virus, because not every infected individual develops antibodies.
It is also unclear how strong a defense antibodies might confer or for how long. But combined with similar results from studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other institutions, it's evident a large majority may not be protected.
Researchers at Stanford University and Ascend Clinical laboratory, a company that processes lab tests for kidney dialysis patients, examined leftover blood plasma samples from a randomly selected group of 28,500 patients. Testing the plasma revealed about 8% had coronavirus antibodies, the molecules the immune system churns out to help fight an infection.
"We are still in the middle of the fight," said Eli Rosenberg, a State University of New York at Albany epidemiologist who was not part of the study. "We're all tired, and we're all hoping for a vaccine. This shows us how it's not over here, not even by a long shot."
Information for this article was contributed by Bobby Caina Calvan, Heather Hollingsworth, Nicky Forster and Jocelyn Noveck of The Associated Press; and by Ben Guarino of The Washington Post.
