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Florida Reopens Despite Lurking Coronavirus Danger
Coronavirus remains among us
Florida beaches and parks have all been idle too long since closing to public. Even the simple things, like getting haircut, eating out, has been DOA. While the public is longing for the "old ways" before the virus hit, reopening the states as urged by President Trump (because it looks good for him politically with the economy) is really a bad gamble, according to most medical experts.
The states that are reopening do not even have the guidelines nor meet the criteria the president or his medical experts had set up for a gradual reopening. In fact, nearly all of them, including Florida, still have rising rates of deaths and cases. Yet, the Governors of these states are reopening!
Florida
The state is still seeing rising daily death rates (now over 800) and infection cases (now over 28,000). This figure has only increased in the past two weeks, it has never declined. Nobody knows when the leveling off will occur and nearly 50% of these numbers are ALL in the Miami-Dade-Broward county area on the southeast coast. In contrast, the numbers on the Gulf side are minuscule, numbering barely into the thousands. It is the large urban areas in the state that suffer the worst cases.
Now, the Miami area is reopening. People will be able to go to the beach, jog, boat, go to restaurants, etc. The mayor has stated that there will be new rules about social distancing even on basketball courts that will be enforced. Really???? Some places may require a mask. Salons that reopen will have to limit customers and disinfect areas before the next. Beaches are open only for activities, no groups and no sunbathing allowed. Parking areas near them closed.
Think about the new rules and how police would even try to enforce them. Impossible. So, the mayor of Miami and others within the state are really hoping the public will abide by the rules and be self-enforced. LOL, we saw the results of this when Jacksonville reopened their beaches, it was like: virus, what virus? Were any citations given out by police? were they even trying to enforce the same guidelines used? Nope.
Will the police have a special "beach patrol" unit to make sure no one is sunbathing or in groups of more than a few? Will they actually make an arrest for refusing to obey the order? One can easily see just how quickly overwhelmed the police will become. How about boats? Will boaters be allowed if there are more than 3-4 in a boat? How would one even enforce social distancing on a boat? Impossible!
Relying on the public to self-enforce only has one outcome: failure and the virus that is causing havoc in that part of the state will continue to spread. This will eventually impact the surrounding areas with lower levels of infection and so on.
Reopening in less contaminated areas does make some sense because these areas do have less of a threat, overall, but large urban areas are incubators for the virus because of population size and just human behavior. The state is going to regret ever reopening so soon, decisions made by ignorant people not listening to professional medical staff who study the virus.