Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) called on Tuesday for closing the U.S. borders and putting a coronavirus mobile testing site in every county by the end of the week.
Scott, a former hospital association executive, released a statement on Tuesday calling on every American to come together and stop the coronavirus epidemic.
Scott said that the country should:
- Close the U.S. borders and end travel from any foreign country except for American citizens and legal permanent residents.
- Solve the testing issue by establishing a mobile testing site in every county in the country by Friday.
- Call upon National Guard units and active duty military to help support the mobile testing sites.
- Enforce social distancing measures. He added that national quarantine is challenging to enforce and serves as a waste of resources.
- Protect supply chains for protective equipment for healthcare workers and first responders.
Scott said in an interview with Fox News on Monday that Americans need to take “extreme” measures to counter the spread of the coronavirus.
He said:
We’re either going to go the path of South Korea or we’re going to go the path of Italy. I think we’re going to go the path of South Korea because we have to get this testing up this week. We need to be able to do rapid tests. We’ve got to secure our borders; I think that’s got to happen. Our governors have got to figure out how they can make sure we get social distancing; that’s way better than the federal government. We’ve got to take care of our healthcare workers.
“We’re in a crisis, and it’s your personal responsibility to figure this out. The federal government cannot solve every problem. We’ve got to have our families, our churches, our mayors, our communities; we all have to get together on this and solve this problem,” Scott said.
Scott’s call to close the American borders follows as President Donald Trump said his administration is considering closing the northern border as the coronavirus continues to spread through Canada.
“We think about it. … If we don’t have to do it, that would be very good,” Trump said. “We’re talking about different things.”
Breitbart News’s John Binder reported on Monday that over 10,000 foreign nationals have been caught attempting to cross into the United States from Canada before the Canadian government announced it would close the borders to foreign travelers.
Since October, roughly 151,000 foreign nationals from 72 countries with confirmed coronavirus cases have crossed the Canadian border into the United States.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.