Jim Turner

“Right now, though, I’m not going to cry over spilled milk.”

“It’s not going to be something that a switch is going to be flipped,” DeSantis said of his month-long stay-at-home order that ends Thursday.

“We need to get these counties open at the very least.”

Estimates for Florida by the federal agency in previous weeks had been lower than figures mentioned by state officials.

“I think the key to these things are not to hit the gas pedal, to try and go 100 miles an hour out of the gate, but to gradually ramp up,” said Simpson.

Fried says that her omission from the task force is “sadly more of the same politics over state from the governor.”

“In Florida, we know when a hurricane comes through. It devastates a community. It wrecks your home. You build it back on a stronger foundation.”

Officials were quick to note that the March rate shows where the state was in mid-March.

“While we’ve made some progress in the recent days, it’s not nearly enough.”

While DeSantis said he was “happy” in progress made, he remains “disappointed” in the website’s performance.

The bills, which legislative leaders formally sent to DeSantis earlier Wednesday, were passed during the session that ended last month.

The system has been overwhelmed as businesses have shuttered or scaled back because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re in a situation where this system is not handling the needs of the people of Florida in an adequate way.”

Last week, more than 133,000 people applied for benefits.

The announcement came a day after DeSantis said he was setting up a similar checkpoint in Northwest Florida, targeting travelers from Louisiana.

“It’s going to be a homeless crisis,” said a spokeswoman for the Department of Economic Opportunity. “It’s going to be a children without food crisis.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday daily claims to the state’s reemployment assistance system could jump between 18,000 and 21,000 a day.