Kids’ Sports and Summer Camps Can Resume Across the State, DeSantis Says

The Republican governor made the announcement, arguing that children don’t seem to get infected at the same rate as adults.

Speaking at a news conference from Jacksonville, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced Friday that the state will allow organized activities for children, including summer camps and youth sports, effective immediately.

But as of Friday morning no official order has been issued and the Republican governor said he would not prevent municipalities from making their own rules.

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During the conference, DeSantis expressed he made his decision on the belief that children are less likely to suffer serious consequences due to the novel coronavirus epidemic that so far has claimed more than 2,100 lives in the Sunshine State.

The Trump ally argued that children don’t seem to get infected at the same rate as adults and that kids didn’t turn out to be spreaders of the illness to other more vulnerable adults, as was originally believed.

“This makes sense based on the data and observed experience. We are not going to be instituting a lot of rules, or really any rules. At the end of the day, we trust parents to be able to make decisions in conjunction with physicians,” he said, seated beside Dr. Bonnie White, his family’s pediatrician. Dr.  White backed the governor’s assessment, adding that many of her patients have shown symptoms of anxiety and depression because of the months of isolation.

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The Center for Disease Controls and Prevention has noted that “relatively few” children have suffered severe health consequences such as hospitalizations due to COVID-19.

But as it has been previously noted, the numbers of new cases and fatalities reported by the Florida Department of Health may be undercounted, as the FDH may take up to two weeks to report the number of positive results from private labs. Similarly, the number of fatalities issued by the Medical Examiner’s Office has consistently been 10% higher than reported.