ORLANDO, Fla. – After nearly five months of being told to quarantine following their arrival in Florida, travelers from the Tri-State area no longer need to do so after Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a new executive order Thursday.
Since March, anyone traveling from New York, New Jersey or Connecticut to Florida was ordered to quarantine for 14 days after arriving. The Tri-State area was once considered the epicenter of America’s coronavirus outbreak.
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DeSantis issued a new executive order Thursday removing the requirement that travelers from the New York Tri-State area quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in Florida.
According to the DOT, more than 138,300 traveler forms were collected at airports across the state while the executive order was in place.
The Florida Department of Transportation has now deactivated the checkpoints on Interstate 10 and Interstate 95. Nearly 80,000 traveler forms were collected between those two checkpoints in the past five months.
While New York has reported about 100,000 fewer COVID-19 infections than Florida, the deaths and hospitalizations show the true impact of the virus. New York has reported more than 25,000 fatalities and nearly 90,000 hospitalizations. On Thursday, Florida’s death toll was approaching 7,800 with more than 29,000 hospitalized since March.
Across the U.S., more than 150,000 people have died from the virus and more than 4.7 million people have been infected.