Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Blames Hispanic Workforce For COVID-19 Spike
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is blaming the Hispanic workforce for the state’s recent COVID-19 spike. DeSantis points his finger at clusters of “overwhelmingly Hispanic” day laborers and agriculture workers, who he says are stuck, cramped up in living and working conditions.
However, farmworkers and industry associations counter, stating that resources and testing arrived a little too late for their communities to halt the spread of the novel virus. They say DeSantis ignored the pleas from a coalition of 50 groups asking for help back in late April — a little over a month before the state reported 8,886 new cases between June 4 and June 11.
DeSantis told reporters on Tuesday, “Some of these guys go to work in a school bus, and they are all just packed there like sardines, going across Palm Beach County or some of these other places, and there’s all these opportunities to have transmission.”
Antonio Tovar, executive director of the Farmworker Association of Florida, “We sent this letter to the governor more than two months ago and now he is realizing that foreign workers are more suitable to get infected. That is very shameful because he was advised, he was told when we sent the letter.”
Furthermore, on Thursday, the state reported its largest single-day spike since the pandemic started, with a whopping 3,207 new infections.
RELATED: Florida Bars And Restaurants Close A Week After Reopening As COVID-19 Cases Increase