STATEWIDE — As the number of coronavirus cases grow in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is getting push back from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after he said that younger people do not die from COVID-19.

"I don't think nationwide there's been a single fatality under 25. For whatever reason, it just doesn't seem to threaten, you know, kids. And we lose in Florida five to 10 kids a year for the flu," he said. “If you're younger, it just hasn't had an impact. So that should factor into how we're viewing this."

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However, the CDC says that is not true, stating that four people in America between the ages of 15 and 24 have died from coronavirus and one child under 4 years old has also died.

None of those deaths were in Florida.

Beyond that, the CDC says young people tend to display less severe symptoms when they have the virus, but they warn younger people can still pass it on to others.

And there have been cases were even young people with no underlying medical conditions developing severe symptoms of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, 6 p.m. numbers showed there are 17,968 cases in Florida.

As the nation begins Good Friday, experts say social distancing is working, and in parts of the nation, the curve is flattening.

Over in South Korea, once seeing the biggest outbreak outside China, saw zero new cases for the first time in a 24 hour period.

Globally, infections top 1.5 million, with nearly 100,000 dead. To show just how big the struggle is here in the U.S, the state of New York alone has more than 160,000 cases.

President Donald Trump is looking ahead to re-opening the country for business. He says the emotional toll will be felt, but economically, Americans will be just fine.

"We're also seeing encouraging signs in our race to develop breakthrough treatment therapies.  Pfizer revealed today that it has found a promising new treatment that might prevent the virus from replicating,” he said. "So we have 19 therapies being tested currently. There are 26 more in the active planning stages for clinical trials. That's a statement. That's a lot."

America's top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says the death toll is still spiking in the U.S., reaching nearly 17,000 as of Friday morning.

He adds a bit of optimism, saying there is also a dramatic decrease in the need for hospitalizations.