The footage shows wards with more patients than they can handle. The staff seem overwhelmed.

The hospital's head of emergency care, Dr. Roberto Cosentini, told Sky News: "It's a very severe pneumonia, and so it's a massive strain for every health system, because we see every day 50 to 60 patients who come to our emergency department with pneumonia, and most of them are so severe they need very high volumes of oxygen."

He added: "And so we had to reorganize our emergency room and our hospital — three levels of intensive care."

But at a press conference Thursday, DeSantis stuck to his guns. In his own words, here’s what he said:

“We did an order, no gatherings on beaches, 10 or more. So what you’ve seen now is a lot of the sheriffs‘ departments have instituted protocols. I had the Brevard sheriff, he had his deputies on ATVs. They had a boat going down the coast and they’re telling people you’ve got to disburse. Cocoa Beach, major spring break destination, went down 70 percent since my order.

And so I think that’s a more prudent approach, to do social distancing. I just spoke to the U.S. surgeon general about it. Here’s the thing. They want you to social distance, of course. But they actually encourage people to get fresh air. They just don’t want you congregating in big groups. And so if you have a Floridian that goes and walks their dog, like a married couple on the beach, as long as you're not within six feet of each other, they view that as a healthy thing.

So I think it’s important to allow that if the local communities want to do it, to be able to do it.