Florida's GOP governor compares reopening schools to the raid that killed bin Laden

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday compared the complex challenges of reopening schools amid a pandemic to the US military raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
• DeSantis, a Republican and strong supporter of President Donald Trump, said: "Just as the SEALs surmounted obstacles to bring Osama bin Laden to justice, so too would the Martin County School system find a way to provide parents with a meaningful choice of in-person instruction or continued distance learning."
• Across the US, schools that have reopened have seen COVID-19 outbreaks.

Florida's Republican governor on Wednesday compared the process of reopening schools amid the coronavirus pandemic to the Navy SEALs raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

"Martin County Superintendent Laurie Gaylord told me she viewed re-opening her schools as a mission akin to a Navy SEAL operation. Just as the SEALs surmounted obstacles to bring Osama bin Laden to justice, so too would the Martin County School system find a way to provide parents with a meaningful choice of in-person instruction or continued distance learning," Gov. Ron DeSantis said during an address on re-opening schools.

Florida emerged as a coronavirus hotspot this summer. Though new cases have declined there over the past two weeks, some areas of the state are still in trouble.

The Sunshine State was one of the last states to issue lockdown orders and was one of the first to reopen.

DeSantis, a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, has generally pushed against strong restrictions meant to mitigate the spread of the virus.

Like Trump, the Florida governor supports reopening schools despite public health experts warning that doing so in areas with high case rates could exacerbate the US outbreak.

Trump last week falsely stated that children are "almost immune" to the virus as he continued to call for schools to open back up.

Though the virus does not appear to impact young people as severely, the concern is that children with the virus will pass it on to school staff and older family members. Schools across the country have seen outbreaks of COVID-19 after reopening.