DeSantis announces new testing lanes at Orange County Convention Center

ORLANDO, Fla. - Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was at the Turkey Lake Rest Area in Orlando on Friday to present news of electric charging stations at the state's highway rest stops, but he made waves by announcing new COVID-19 testing options in Orange County.

With thousands of COVID-19 tests happening at the Orange County Convention Center, the governor said they would have specific lanes for people who think they have symptoms.

“What we're going to work on doing at the Convention Center is have lanes for people who are actually symptomatic,” Gov. DeSantis said.

He said many of the people lining up, waiting for hours for testing were not showing symptoms.

“Most of the people who are testing now aren't necessarily symptomatic. So if somebody is actually ill, they need to know if it's coronavirus or not as quickly as possible.”

DeSantis said that way people could get the results faster and get back to their lives.

“They can go through, hopefully, get it turned around in decent time, because what are you gonna do, isolate for seven days while waiting for test results? That's not what we want to see.”

DeSantis said the vast number of people getting tested were taxing the labs and leading to longer turnaround times.