Our View: Gov. DeSantis, shut this state down

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Florida, the state famous for retirees, where 20% of residents are at least 65 years old, has embarrassed itself across the nation with images of drunken young people in swimsuits crowding beaches during a global pandemic.

Worse, Florida is endangering itself — any of us who is showing no symptoms of coronavirus disease may be unwittingly carrying it and transmitting it to people who are more vulnerable. And who may die.

Short of maximum testing and tracking, as South Korea did so admirably — not possible in the United States, given our unconscionably slow start and lagging testing capacity — our only real chance of halting a wildfire of infection is through an extreme program of social distancing.

The governors of states such as California, New York, Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey recognize this. They have issued stay-at-home orders for as long as public health officials deem necessary. Their residents are barred from leaving their houses except to work at crucial businesses such as grocery stores and utilities or to shop for essentials or take solitary walks.

DeSantis has been far too slow to convey the sense of emergency this moment requires. On Friday, DeSantis did order some closures in Palm Beach and Broward counties. Miami-Dade and Alachua counties have gone farther, closing “non-essential businesses.”

It’s not enough. Asked last Saturday why he was announcing no new restrictions, DeSantis said he hasn’t “bought into” the direst forecasts in states such as California.

The Republican governor doesn’t “buy into” the calculations of public health experts? He doesn’t “buy into” the quickly escalating curve of new test-positives? Is the health of 21.3 million Floridians — and all their contacts beyond state borders — to be dependent on this one man’s gut?

In Europe, which is in danger of facing an Italy-like surge of cases, epidemiologists are finding that if infections are unchecked, the number doubles approximately every five days, with infected individuals capable of passing the virus to an average of about 2.5 people. If that rate is our fate, Florida reaches 10 million infections — 50% of the population — in about 10 weeks.

We don’t want to be Italy, which has become the pandemic’s new epicenter with almost 69,000 cases and over 6,800 deaths as of Wednesday. The numbers are so appalling because, although Italy has some of the tightest restrictions in the world, they were put in place piecemeal or too late.

Nobody wants to see Florida’s economy come to a halt. But the sooner we clamp down on normal life — and clamp down hard ‒ the sooner we can slow the infection rate and keep more people healthy. There is no chance of an economic recovery, or any sort of normal life, as long as infections rage on.

We urge DeSantis to waste no time in declaring the same sort of stay-at-home restrictions that New Yorkers are under. Governor, the time for action is rushing by. Quit dithering. Shut this state down.

Editorial Boards — USA TODAY Network-Florida.