Florida touts opposite approach: visitor bans, staff testing, and no COVID-positive discharges to nursing homes

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis publicly contrasted his state's approach with New York's, noting that Florida had banned nursing-home visits since mid-March and prohibited hospitals from discharging COVID-positive patients back into nursing facilities that could not isolate them, instead standing up COVID-only nursing facilities. AP reporting confirmed Florida barred the return of virus-positive patients to homes lacking isolation wards and required regular staff testing. DeSantis argued the discharge prohibition 'saved a lot of lives,' while critics of Florida noted the state still recorded thousands of long-term-care deaths.