Florida governor Ron DeSantis finally has locked down much of his state. In so doing, he has made a rather bold claim.
Via WKMG in Orlando, DeSantis said during a Wednesday press conference that the coronavirus first began making its way through Florida during Super Bowl week.
This contention overlooks the reality that, if the virus were being passed from person to person in late January or early February, clusters of serious illness or death would have begun to emerge at that time. That’s what happened in Washington, when the first significant outbreak occurred at a nursing home.
The first Florida case of COVID-19 didn’t emerge until roughly a month after the Super Bowl.
In Italy, a soccer match occurring before the country’s first COVID-19 case emerged has been flagged as “Game Zero” of the local outbreak. The match in question happened only two days before the first COVID-19 diagnosis.