Apple closing all South Florida stores again due to rising Florida coronavirus cases 

All stand-alone Apple stores in South Florida will be temporarily shut down again due to Florida’s surging number of coronavirus cases over the past two weeks, according to reports.

On Friday, Apple will re-close 14 stores in Florida, including all stores in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, the company said in a statement to CNBC. This comes after two Southwest Florida stores, in Naples and Estero, were closed again on Wednesday.

“Due to current COVID-19 conditions in some of the communities we serve, we are temporarily closing stores in these areas,” Apple said in a statement. “We take this step with an abundance of caution as we closely monitor the situation and we look forward to having our teams and customers back as soon as possible.”

Apple first closed its Florida stores in March. On the day of the shutdown, about 10 blue-shirted Apple Store employees stood in front of the Galleria mall location in Fort Lauderdale to answer questions and block customers from trying to enter through the partially open sliding doors. One employee referred a customer to the reopening stores in China at the time.

Miami-Dade only has five stand-alone Apple locations, Broward has one and Palm Beach has three that will be closing, according to Mark Gurman, a Bloomberg News reporter.

Here are the South Florida stores:

▪ Apple The Falls: 8888 SW 136th St.

▪ Apple Dadeland: 7535 Dadeland Mall

▪ Apple Brickell City Centre: 701 S. Miami Ave.

▪ Apple Lincoln Road: 1021 Lincoln Rd.

▪ Apple Aventura: 19501 Biscayne Blvd.

▪ Apple The Galleria: 2388 E. Sunrise Blvd.

▪ Apple Wellington Green: 10300 W. Forest Hill Blvd.

▪ Apple The Gardens Mall: 3101 PGA Blvd.

▪ Apple Boca Raton: 6000 Glades Road

Businesses across Florida have been reopening since mid-May. The state was seeing 900 to 2,000 new daily cases, and April and May were thought to be the state’s peak period for the virus.

But since mid-June, Florida has seen several record-breaking days, with new daily cases reaching into the 3,000 to 5,000 range. Wednesday saw 5,508 new coronavirus cases, the most reported in the state since the pandemic began, and Tuesday had 5,004 new cases.

This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 3:58 PM.

Devoun Cetoute

Miami Herald

305-376-2026

Miami Herald Cops and Breaking News Reporter Devoun Cetoute covers a plethora of Florida topics, from breaking news to crime patterns. He was on the breaking news team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2022. He’s a graduate of the University of Florida, born and raised in Miami-Dade. Theme parks, movies and cars are on his mind in and out of the office.