ORLANDO, Fla. — The coronavirus crisis has proved especially deadly at nursing homes across the country, and right here in Florida and the governor says nursing homes are where the state should focus a lot of its attention right now. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Wednesday the state wants to get families back into nursing homes to visit their loved ones as soon as possible.

In fact, the governor recently announced a longterm care facility in Jacksonville will serve as a place where nursing home residents who test positive for COVID-19 who do not necessarily need hospitalization and will be placed until they recover fully. 

State officials are confident in that facility’s ability to prevent the spread of the virus versus other facilities across the state.

DeSantis also wants all nursing home residents to be tested, but he says the state cannot force that because residents have to be willing to be tested – and some of those residents have said they don’t want to be.

"So when the National Guard goes in, some of them say no, and we’ve respected that. But yes, but we want every resident who wants a test to be able to do it. We have the tests available, it’s how you administer them," he said.

This comes just days after a key members of the White House Coronavirus task force recommended that officials test all of the roughly 1 million residents at the nation’s nursing homes within two weeks.

Ellyne Myers says before the pandemic, she never left her husband alone in his memory care facility.

“Every single day we made sure someone was there,” Myers said.

But because of the coronavirus pandemic, she and her daughters haven’t been able to visit him in almost two months.

Rick, who suffers from dementia and is non-verbal, has lived in a long-term memory care facility for seven years.

They say the ability to be there with him is vital to his care.

The Myers say FaceTime on an iPad has been a great tool in communicating with their father and husband, but it still doesn’t replace that human contact he needs.

“It doesn’t make up for that human interaction we have with him in person, we usually sit there and listen to music and dance with him and walk, with and he can feel our presence,” said Rick and Ellyne's daughter Alissa.

As much as they want to see him though, they understand why they can’t. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“And we want to, so bad, we want to so bad, but it’s not fair to the rest of the residents and their loved ones who are depending on us to do the right thing,” Alissa Myers said.

They know how important this is, because Rick has already contracted coronavirus.

Thankfully he recovered, but DeSantis says there are many who wouldn’t survive in nursing homes if they were exposed.

“This will continue to be the tip of the spear,” he said at a press conference Wednesday.

DeSantis said his office has been working aggressively to test all residents and staff at long-term care facilities — even deploying 50 National Guard mobile testing units to facilities.

He says they want to come up with a solution to allow families to visit their loved ones again soon.

One idea the governor threw out was rapid testing and PPE for visitors, but he didn't say when that would happen.

“I also don’t want to give people false hope and say, ‘Oh yeah we’ll be in there in two weeks, because I can’t guarantee that,’” DeSantis said.

The Myers say as soon as it’s safe, nothing will stop them from seeing their father.

“We all feel strongly about making sure there’s a safe way for visitation. We’ll be first in line when there is,” Alissa Myers said.