Sen. Rick Scott, Florida Republican, on Monday said a new uptick in coronavirus cases in states like his is “clearly” not all tied to increased testing.
“[The] big thing is, everybody’s got to take this seriously and especially when you see the uptick in cases — some of it might be tied to testing, but it’s clearly not all tied to testing,” Mr. Scott said on CNBC. “So all of us have to double down and say to ourselves, are we being careful enough?”
Asked about the Republican National Convention, parts of which are now slated to be held in Jacksonville in late August, Mr. Scott stressed that events have to be held safely.
“People need to wear masks. They need to social distance. You got to do this in a manner that no one gets sick,” he said.
“Let’s try to get back to normal as fast as possible, but let’s do it in a safe manner,” Mr. Scott said. “We got to do this safely so we don’t continue [to] see this uptick in the number of cases.”
Republican leaders in some states that are seeing a mini-resurgence have tied the recent upticks to increased testing.
Florida broke a single-day record for new coronavirus cases for three consecutive days last week — Thursday, Friday and Saturday — before the numbers ticked back down a bit on Sunday.
The state is closing in on 100,000 cases out of a population of close to 22 million people.
President Trump on Saturday said testing is a “double-edged sword.” He said at a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that he told “his people” at one point to “slow down the testing, please.”
The administration said on Sunday that the remark was made in jest.
“Our Coronavirus testing is so much greater (25 million tests) and so much more advanced, that it makes us look like we have more cases, especially proportionally, than other countries. My message on that is very clear!” the president said on Twitter overnight Monday.
There are now more than 2.2 million coronavirus cases and more than 119,000 coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S., according to a tracker from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. has a population of more than 300 million people.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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