Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is working with a task force he assembled to help get the state back up and running, while analysts presented the team with a pessimistic proposal that shows the state could take four years to recover economically from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to WKMG.
What’s Happening:
- Governor Ron DeSantis assembled a task force composed of key individuals in reopening the State of Florida amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Walt Disney World Resort President Josh D’Amaro and Universal Orlando Resort executive vice president/CEO of Universal Parks & Resorts John Sprouls are listed as being on this task force.
- Earlier today, DeSantis opened the first meeting of the task force by saying he wants “to get the economy back in a safe way” before he and the task force were told that more than 40% of tourism, recreation, retail, real estate, construction and transportation jobs are at risk.
- The chamber’s chief economist said that optimistically, Florida’s gross domestic product will take a 2.3% hit and should come back by the end of the year, while pessimistically speaking, an 8.9% drop in GDP could be expected and would takethe state’s economy up to four years to recover.
- “Flattening the Curve” (seeing a decrease in COVID-19 cases) is widely considered to be the main way to assess how quickly a state can begin to think about lifting stay-at-home regulations, reopening and restarting the state’s economy. While the disease is present in counties across the state, the bulk of Florida’s COVID-19 cases are in South Florida, with 56% of the total cases in the state in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
- Gov. DeSantis assigned the task force into different working groups, split by high, medium, and low-risk industries. Each group will share the results of the daily meetings to an executive committee daily at 2:00 PM through Friday, April 22nd. These different industries may end up reopening on different schedules.
- The Re-Open Florida Task Force members:
- Lt. Gov Jeanette Nuñez
- Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis
- Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody
- President of the Florida Senate Bill Galvano
- Florida House of Representatives speaker Jose Oliva
- Florida Sen. Wilton Simpson
- Rep. Chris Sprowls
- Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran
- Jamal Sowell, President & CEO of Enterprise Florida, Inc.
- Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez
- Broward County Mayor Dale Holness
- Palm Beach County Mayor David Kerner
- President and CEO of Tampa General Hospital John Couris
- Walt Disney World Resort president Josh D’Amaro
- Publix Super Markets CEO Todd Jones
- Board of Governors for the State University System chairman Syd Kitson
- Raymond James Financial chairman and CEO Paul Reilly
- Florida Bankers Association president and CEO Alex Sanchez
- Florida Power & Light Company president and CEO Eric Silagy
- Universal Orlando Resort executive vice president and CEO of Universal Parks & Resorts John Sprouls
- Vice president of global supply chain for Lockheed Martin Corporation Patrick Sunderlin
- AT&T Florida and Caribbean president Joe York