WATCH: Ron DeSantis says blanket testing for COVID-19 leads to 'lockdown by stealth'

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis attended an event in Union County, where he awarded $3.5 million to fortify the county's infrastructure in preparation for hurricanes and floods. While at the event, DeSantis spoke on the topic of COVID-19 tests.

He said: "Now think about it, before COVID, did anyone go out and seek testing to determine if they were sick? It's usually, you feel like you're sick and then you get tested to determine what you may have come down. And so this is kind of a new thing where they've been saying, 'Just go out and test all the time and, again, you're free to do it,' but I think what the [Department of Health] guidance from Florida is saying is that it's unlikely to yield any clinical value for you and it also creates a lot of second order follow-up problems."

"It's essentially a lockdown by stealth in the sense of, if you test positive but you're not sick or have symptoms, you may have to isolate. They don't even know – the tests can't even tell you if you're even infectious or not. And these PCR tests – you can test positive for weeks, months even in some cases," he continued.

He continued: "And so what happens is, blanket testing of healthy people it leads to some kids being not in school. It leads to people not being able to go to work. And doing some of this isolation may not even be justified. And so I think those guidelines are very sensible and again it’s not saying people can do what they want to do, but I can tell you to just force healthy people, business or whatever, we don't advise that at all."

"We think that's a mistake," DeSantis said. "We think people should live their lives. And then if they develop symptoms, then you can obviously get a test. If you're at risk, the treatment would change the course for you. We obviously want to see that treatment done."

Last month, the Florida Division of Emergency Management reported that 800,000 test kits had expired in a warehouse.

"Having a stockpile was the right thing to do. I mean, if we had done the opposite, we would have run out and then had to order as people had done it," DeSantis said. "We just had a lack of demand that happened in September, October, November; nobody was requesting them. They would have been used, I think, had we had Omicron then, but you also don't want a situation where you're wasting millions and millions of dollars."

Florida requested and was given an extension by the US Department of Health and Human Services to use the tests ahead of their expiration, but the state kept them in a stockpile because "no one really wanted them for many, many months."

"They (FDEM) had already gotten one extension, they had asked, 'Can you do more, can you do more?' they (HHS) said 'No,' so hopefully they'll answer that and if anyone wants those, they'll do, at the same time, if they're not accurate we don't want to be giving people a false sense," DeSantis said.

He shifted focus to note that the state had begun shipping some 1 million at-home test kits to nursing homes and long-term care facilities that request them since Thursday.

"We've acquired a million at-home tests, we're going to be sending those first to our nursing homes and long-term care facilities, and then we're going to focus getting those in the hands of our senior population who wants it, so they're able to just do that and then move on," DeSantis said.