Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will hold a press conference Wednesday in St. Petersburg alongside Department of Education commissioner Richard Corcoran.
While it wasn’t immediately clear what the governor would address in the conference, Florida is currently contending with a COVID-19 surge, a face mask debate and potential impact from Tropical Storm Fred.
The press conference begins at 10:30 a.m. (EDT), and can be viewed live here.
COVID-19 cases are reaching record numbers in Florida, with a seven-day average of over 20,000 new cases each day and more than 56,000 documented on Tuesday. DeSantis and the state government have been locked in a debate with some local lawmakers and school districts that defied an executive order banning mask mandates.
”The federal government has no right to tell parents that in order for their kids to attend school in person, they must be forced to wear a mask all day, every day,” DeSantis said. “Many Florida schoolchildren have suffered under forced masking policies, and it is prudent to protect the ability of parents to make decisions regarding the wearing of masks by their children.”
Meanwhile, Florida may begin seeing wind and rainfall impacts from Tropical Storm Fred by Friday in the Keys, with the weather spreading northward this weekend, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Check back with Newsweek for more updates.
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