Florida Governor Supports Letting More Customers in Theme Parks

(Bloomberg) -- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will support theme-park operators if they want to relax Covid-19 limits and accept more customers, now that the resurgence of cases in the state appeared to be abating.

At a roundtable meeting with theme-park executives Wednesday in Orlando, DeSantis praised safety measures at the parks and said their reopenings hadn’t been a major source of coronavirus in the state.

“We think that the capacity can be increased,” DeSantis said. “When you have the protocols they have in place, we’re very comfortable at the state level that they’re doing it in a good way.”

A looming question is whether consumers are willing to travel and whether they’ll want to be in crowded places.

“A lot of it is people willing to come,” DeSantis said.

Florida was among a series of Sun Belt states that saw a spike in Covid-19 cases starting in June and continuing through July. But hospitalizations, case numbers and deaths have all declined recently after many local governments tightened restrictions.

Shares of Walt Disney Co., the largest park operator in Florida, rose as much as 2% to $132.40 in New York.

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