More Than 1,000 COVID-19 Cases Reported Last Weekend, DeSantis Says To Look Beyond The Numbers

WFSU | By Robbie Gaffney

Published May 18, 2020 at 5:16 PM EDT

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, right, speaks at a news conference during the new coronavirus pandemic, Thursday, May 14, 2020, in Doral, Fla. DeSantis has signed an executive order for the reopening of Miami-Dade and Broward counties on May 18.

Gov. Ron DeSantis says a rise in coronavirus cases, doesn’t necessarily mean the virus is spreading more. DeSantis spoke about the issue Monday after test results released Saturday showed more than 1,000 new cases of the virus.

As of today, the Florida Department of Health reports the state has a total of 46,422 cases of COVID-19. That same report shows there were 1,160 new cases on Saturday and 666 new cases on Sunday.

“When you see numbers in any county that kind of go out of what they’ve been trending, it’s usually a data dump of backlogged tests, a prison outbreak, nursing homes or sometimes we’ll have new test sites that pop up and that you see a surge and then it dies down,” DeSantis says.

DeSantis says if positive cases of the virus increase, he urges people to look behind the numbers, and find the cause for that rise in results.