DeSantis on Biden's hints of future COVID lockdowns: 'Honestly, it's insane.'

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday slammed President Joe Biden's hints of potential future COVID lockdowns, pledging to shield his state from any such measures issued by Washington. 

Biden in a national address on Thursday claimed that if Americans "don’t stay vigilant and the conditions change," then the U.S. "may have to reinstate restrictions to get back on track," a thinly veiled reference to the type of lockdowns that froze the country in March and April of 2020. 

DeSantis sharply criticized those remarks during a Friday press conference. 

"To even contemplate doing any type of lockdown, honestly it's insane," he said. 

"That's not going to happen in the state of Florida," he added. "We're going to continue doing what works, but under no circumstances would we entertain anything of the sort."

DeSantis has received both acclaim and criticism for being among the scant few governors to resist open-ended, months-long lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In spite of bucking much of the orthodoxy on the coronavirus over the past year, Florida sits almost in the middle of the nationwide ranking of population-adjusted deaths, having avoided the mass casualty events critics warned would grip the state if it did not follow conventional thinking on the pandemic. 

The Floridian governor suggested on Friday that he would resist any efforts from Washington to shut down Florida. 

"I can tell you, that ain't happening in Florida," he said. "We are not going to let him lock down Florida."