Rick Scott demands social distancing, masks for Republican National Convention
Sen. Rick Scott

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Limited arena? Senator says yes, for safety's sake.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott continues to sound coronavirus cautions ahead of the Republican National Convention coming to Jacksonville in August.

The Senator, who has expressed consistent concern that the fight against COVID-19 is not over, said on the Fox News Radio Brian Kilmeade Show Tuesday that conventioneers would have to “figure out” social distancing and masks.

“You’re going to have to,” Scott said. “We have to wear masks.”

Jacksonville’s Mayor may disagree, as his city is not close to issuing a mask order despite daily rates of positive tests flirting with 10% in recent days.

They’re going to have to figure out how to do this to keep people safe,” the Senator added, saying he “expects every family to do this across the state.”

When asked if capacity should be halved, the Senator wouldn’t commit to the number, but he did commit to the concept.

We do it at the Capitol. We don’t stay close to each other. They’re going to have to do the same thing in the arena. Spread people out to make sure they’re doing social distancing,” Scott said. “They’re going to have to figure out how to do it.”

The Senator was gifted an opportunity to opine on Florida’s outbreak, but he did not attack the current Governor.

“No one knows yet” why the disease is surging in the state, but Scott expressed confidence that “the state has put out as much information as they can.” 

Whether that’s a consensus position is an open question, with numerous questions raised about data related to hospital capacity and ICU use in recent weeks.

Scott has given increasingly frequent interviews where Florida’s battle with coronavirus suppression has been a major focus.

On Monday, he made some of the same points about the realities of a Republican National Convention staged during a pandemic.

“I like everything to be in Florida but we have to do it safely,” Scott said, offering yet another rebuke to the idea of a 2016 style convention with attendees shoulder to shoulder and not wearing masks.

“Let’s try to get back to normal as fast as possible but do it safely so we don’t have an uptick of cases,” Scott added.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has written for FloridaPolitics.com since 2014. He is based in Northeast Florida. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


4 comments

  • Frankie M.

    June 23, 2020 at 12:15 pm

    While Ricky’s at it can he yell at all those old white people to get off his beach Clint Eastwood style?

  • Deb

    June 23, 2020 at 1:13 pm

    Rick Scott is full of shit. He’s only now talking about masks; hasn’t he heard, this pandemic has been killing people for over 3 months now? But maybe he’s been too busy kissing Trump’s orange ass to notice how deaths and infections are skyrocketing daily.

    In actuality, Scott is only speaking out to make his arch-rival, Desantis, look out of touch. But Scott’s wasting his time: Floridians know that Desantis is a lousy governor, and we also know that Scott is a lousy senator. Floridians will vote Desantis out in 2022, and vote Scott out in 2024.

  • Sonja Fitch

    June 23, 2020 at 4:18 pm

    Lol lol. Lol. It Ricky can’t figure out which side of the bread to toast! Ricky is a proud white man doing as the goptrump cult leader trump wants him to do. ! Lol. The RNC is a disaster waiting to happen !

  • Ocean Joe

    June 24, 2020 at 11:06 am

    He knows the ship is going down, his president has thrown in the towel on trying to fight Covid and will soon be repudiated by voters and by history, so Uncle Fester and Marco are starting to swim away from the suction. DeSantis is a stronger swimmer, he will wait till the props (wealthy donors) come out of the water before he wades in. And by February, all 3 will claim they never met Trump.

Comments are closed.


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