Florida has been severely impacted by restrictions imposed by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The State has incurred dramatic economic loss during the span of over a year.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is exasperated by this loss and filed a lawsuit in federal court to hold the CDC accountable for restricting cruise line operation. DeSantis introduced the lawsuit in a press conference held in Satellite Beach, Florida.

“But I can tell you this, our state was predicted to get hit worse on Covid economically than any other state because of our service economy and our tourism base,” said DeSantis. “And what we were able to do by keeping Florida open, we saved hundreds of thousands of jobs in the restaurant, hotel, hospitality industry. We saved thousands of businesses.  You know how I know that? Because every time I go out, someone will come up to me and say, ‘Thank you for saving my job,’ or ‘Thank you for saving my business.’ So we’ve been able now with 4.7 percent unemployment, that’s significantly less than the national average of 6% and way less than lockdown states like New York and California have.”

“So, we’re doing it right,” he continued. “We obviously want to make sure those folks are able to succeed in terms of getting the people they need, but just think of where we could be. I mean, this is a good problem to have compared to seeing people — in some parts of the country, these businesses are dead. They’re never coming back. This is the heavy hand of government crushing family businesses, ruining jobs and destroying millions of people’s lives. We chose another path in Florida; it was the right path; it was the successful path, and yes, we want to make sure that these things are — there’s actually restaurants that have to close one day a week because they don’t have enough folks.”

DeSantis worries that cruise lines are considering relocating abroad if not permitted to reopen soon. The lawsuit is seeking to stop the harm CDC actions are causing and prevent these damages from becoming irreparable.

“So that is fundamentally unfair,” DeSantis continued. “It makes no sense, and we are suing the CDC right now. We have a hearing coming up in federal court. But I can tell you, I want the cruises going. I want the cruise ships going; I think it’s vital for our economy. There’s tens of thousands of folks that are impacted by this issue.”

The lawsuit is asking the Court to hold CDC cruise line restrictions unlawful, allow cruises to open with reasonable safety protocols, and have the CDC pay Florida for costs and attorney’s fees.

“When we announced the lawsuit in Miami, I’ll never forget it,” stated DeSantis. “We had a bunch of folks behind me, kind of like this, but they were all people who worked in the industry, and not just worked for the cruise lines. You have all these smaller businesses that support this industry, and one of the ladies went up there. She said, ‘You know, we were told two weeks. It was hard for us, but we were there. We wanted to do our part.’ Here we are a year later. And she’s like ‘You know, there’s been a lot of toll in our community because of Covid. We’ve had a lot of deaths, but they’re not deaths from Covid. They’re deaths from despair’.”

DeSantis further faults the CDC for basing decisions on political matters and ignoring trustworthy science.

“This has implications for potentially any industry and look, with all due respect to the CDC, I mean if you look at some of the stuff that they’ve done on school openings, where they’re basically doing the teacher’s union’s bidding, when they say these kids should be masked in summer camp outdoors,” the governor said. “I’m sorry, that’s not science, that’s politics.”