The Joe Biden administration is considering whether to impose domestic travel restrictions, including on Florida, fearful that COVID-19 mutations are threatening to reverse hard-fought progress on the pandemic. Discussions in the administration over potential travel restrictions focus on how to prevent the spread of variants that appear to be surging in a number of states, including Florida and California.
The U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7, has recently surged in Florida, where over a third of all cases in the United States have been identified. “This is a war and we’re at battle with the virus. War is messy and unpredictable, and all options are on the table,” the White House official said.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said “It would be unconstitutional. It would be unwise and it would be unjust,” February 11, 2021 at a vaccination site in Port Charlotte, on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Florida leads the nation in the number of known cases of the B.1.1.7 strain of the coronavirus, the variant that emerged in the U.K. Researchers says the variant now accounts for up to 15% of the new cases statewide. Because it is more contagious, public health experts worry the emergence of the variant could accelerate spread of the disease. Florida had 202 deaths per day on January 11, 2021 and those numbers are slowly settling with a seven day average of 170 deaths a day on February 10, 2021. A Boeing 732 has 174 seats so the state is still experiencing the deaths of a commercial airplane crash every day.