Despite averaging nearly 11,000 new cases of coronavirus a day for the past five days, a record 15,000 cases reported in one day on July 12, and a record 156 deaths reported on July 16, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says the state is on the right path toward getting through the pandemic.

“I think we’re going in a good direction,” said DeSantis. “We had a very quiet May and early June. We were fortunate of that. If you look at those Covid-like illness visits they were very low for a state of our size, consistently. And then as you started to see more of a wave here I think people really did heed the guidelines.”

DeSantis made the comments during a COVID-19 round-table discussion with Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Mary Mayhew.

Doctors and DeSantis encouraged Floridians to keep going to the hospital and not be discouraged by the statistics or reports of hospital beds or ICU beds filling up.

“Do not delay your care,” said a doctor on the panel.