JACKSONVILLE, Fla — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stressed the importance of reopening the state's schools for the upcoming school year during a news conference Thursday with U.S. Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia.
During the 2:30 p.m. news conference held at the JAXPORT headquarters, DeSantis and Scalia talked about the impact of getting kids back into schools in August. They both stated that schools should be seen as an essential service.
"Educating our kids is absolutely essential," DeSantis said. "I have no doubt we can do this safely."
"We're ready to open our schools," Scalia said. "We know how to safely open our schools."
Scalia said that getting schools reopened is essential to ensuring that family members can get back into the workforce. He said that getting kids back into schools would greatly impact those lower-income parents and working women.
"If we don't get our schools open it's going to be that much harder for working adult women who are facing a higher unemployment rate to get back to work," Scalia said.
DeSantis said that getting kids back into the schools does not pose a great risk because children have less of a risk of getting the coronavirus. He even stated that if his three kids were of school age he would gladly send them to school amid the pandemic.
"I would not hesitate putting them in, in terms of the risk. Because the risk, fortunately for kids, is extremely, extremely low," he said.
During the news conference, DeSantis also spoke about the three new drive-thru testing sited that opened in Jacksonville at First Coast Senior High School, Frank H. Peterson Academy and the Regency Square Mall. He said in just one day 3,400 tests had been done.
In order to ensure a decrease in COVID-19 spread, DeSantis said everyone should remember to avoid the three C's; close spaces, crowds and close sustained contact with others.
DeSantis also briefly talked about the Republican National Convention which is set to happen in Jacksonville in late August. He said that while he is not very involved with the plans for the event he does believe that some outside venues would be a good spot to host the convention.
"On the convention, my view was that outside was always something they were looking at," DeSantis said. "When they came to me they said look all we want you to do is work with us... safety is not negotiable, it's going to be a safe environment and I think you look at someplace like the Daily's Pavilion especially with Florida weather I think you could do that in a way that would be very safe... so I think the outside would be a really good idea"