Gov. DeSantis Defends Trump Coronavirus Comments, Says Mortality for Healthy Young People ‘Pretty Much Zero’

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday defended President Donald Trump’s comment that “99 percent” of coronavirus virus cases are “totally harmless,” citing the low rate of mortality among young people in his state and adding that there was “no need to be really fearful” of the virus.

“I’m not minimizing it, but I think we should also have a proper perspective,” DeSantis told reporters at an afternoon event in The Villages, a Florida retirement community. “When we went into this, there were people saying that a 20-year-old was just as at-risk as a 90-year-old. And that’s just not true. We know where the risk is. We know the comorbidities that are impacted.”

“The number one age for cases in Florida is 21. And if you’re 21 and you don’t have significant comorbidities, your fatality rate is pretty much zero,” he added. “From a clinical perspective, a thousand cases under the age of 30 is going to be less significant than 50 cases in a long-term care facility. That’s just the way this virus works. It’s very much dependent on the age and the comorbidities.”

DeSantis made the remarks the same day Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez (R) said he was ordering gyms and restaurants to close effective Wednesday. That measure comes after the implementation of a 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew and a requirement that residents wear masks at all times, even in outdoor areas.

Florida has experienced a surge in cases driven by the Miami area, but has had far fewer cases in some parts of the state — despite the absence of lockdown measures. DeSantis highlighted that reality with a reference to “one major metro area in South Florida” but said other parts of the state were faring better.

“It’s not an even epidemic throughout the state. There’s a lot of diversity here. Obviously, the solutions are going to be tailored differently based on the facts at hand,” DeSantis said. “As many of you know, we have one major metro area in South Florida that has the highest numbers both in terms of positivity and in terms of [emergency department] visits and hospital usage,” DeSantis said. “And then we have others, if you look at Central Florida, no doubt you’ve seen way more cases in, like, Orange County. But the median age sometimes is in the mid-20s, on a daily basis … and so the clinical consequences of that have been relatively mild.”

Total coronavirus cases in Florida stood at a little more than 206,447 as of July 6, according to data compiled by John Hopkins University. There had been 3,778 deaths tied to the virus, representing a mortality rate of 1.8 percent compared to 4.4 percent nationally.

Watch above, via WFTV 9.