Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis orders statewide shutdown after insisting the White House hadn't advised him to take bold action

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican closely aligned with President Donald Trump, ordered that the entire state of Florida shut down to slow the spread of the coronavirus effective on Thursday.
• Florida has become a hotspot of the pandemic in the US as DeSantis repeatedly rejected calls to issue a statewide stay-at-home order, which he's described as a dictatorial move.
• Republican Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, who was the first person in Miami-Dade County to test positive for the novel coronavirus, told Insider last week that he supports a statewide lockdown.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican closely aligned with President Donald Trump, ordered that the entire state of Florida shut down to slow the spread of the coronavirus effective on Thursday after weeks of refusing to take bold measures.

Florida has become a hotspot of the pandemic in the US as DeSantis looked to the White House for guidance on whether to issue a statewide stay at home order.

DeSantis repeatedly rejected calls to issue a statewide stay-at-home order, citing a lack of widespread infection across the state and arguing that many simply wouldn't heed the order.

On March 24, he said such an order would make him "a dictator" putting Floridians "in prison in their homes."

The governor had attracted widespread appeals from healthcare workers and Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden, to abandon his piecemeal approach and implement a statewide order.

On Tuesday, the governor said the White House's COVID-19 task force hadn't yet recommended he close his state.

"I'm in contact with them, and, basically, I've said, 'Are you guys recommending this?'" DeSantis said at a press conference. "The task force has not recommended that to me. Obviously, if they do, that is something that would carry a lot of weight with me."

Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, who was the first person in Miami-Dade County to test positive for the novel coronavirus, told Insider last week that DeSantis, a fellow Republican, should implement a statewide lockdown.

Suarez, 42, said it's "hard to second-guess" DeSantis' reluctance to follow other states in instituting a shelter-in-place order, "but I personally would."

The mayor shut all nonessential businesses in Miami, the hardest-hit city in the state, on March 17 and issued a "stay at home" order and a curfew last week.

"Every decision that I've made that has been thought to be premature or overly aggressive, in a week or two weeks or three weeks has looked prophetic," Suarez told Insider by phone from his Miami home, where he was finishing a quarantine of more than two weeks.

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