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Florida governor bizarrely asks if anyone tested themselves for illnesses before Covid

Florida governor bizarrely asks if anyone tested themselves for illnesses before Covid

The Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has challenged whether people tested themselves prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, in comments which have since been criticised by people online.

Speaking during a press conference in Union County on Friday, Mr DeSantis disapproved of asymptomatic testing for the coronavirus, describing it as “essentially a lockdown by stealth”.

“Think about it. Before Covid, did anyone go out and seek testing to determine if they were sick?

“It’s usually you feel like you’re sick, and then you get tested to determine what you maybe have come down with. So this is kind of a new thing where they’ve been saying just go out and test all the time.

“If you test positive but you’re not sick or have symptoms, you may have to isolate. They don’t even know the test can’t tell you [if] you’re even infectious or not.

“So what happens is, blanket testing of healthy people, it leads to some kids being not in school. It leads to people not being able to go to work and doing some of this isolation which may not even be justified,” he said.

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However, Twitter users have gone on to answer Mr DeSantis’ question, pointing out examples such as a mammogram, blood tests and the need to check for conditions such as cancer:

For a man so critical of tests, Mr DeSantis sure is testing our patience.

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