Miami-Dade prepping park rules for COVID-19. Basketball games risky, singles tennis OK.

As he moves closer to easing restrictions on parks, golf courses and marinas, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and his advisers are sorting through how to regulate fun and exercise in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

Parks would be closed to team sports, but running, biking and low-contact activities like singles tennis would be allowed. Boats could begin using public ramps again, but with limits on crew size and anchoring. Golf rounds could begin again, but only one person allowed per cart.

“If you want to play some catch with your daughter or your son, that’s probably going to be okay. But you cannot have an organized baseball game,” Gimenez said during an afternoon press conference. “I want to open up as many activities as is safe to do, [depending on] what the medical experts tell us.”

Gimenez wouldn’t offer a timeline for reopening parks and other recreational options, with talks continuing over the weekend with the health professionals and others assigned to help draft the plans for the new restrictions.

In a private teleconference with his “New Normal” task force earlier in the day, the logistical challenges of the effort unfolded, according to participants.

Class divides were one issue. During talk of opening tennis courts to single matches, one participant asked whether basketball courts could also be limited to shooting hoops alone or socially distanced games of HORSE, where players try to match others’ shots.

For running paths, one suggestion was to require one-way traffic to prevent people passing each other face to face. Dr. Aileen Marty, the infectious disease researcher at Florida International University, cautioned against making joggers wear masks, citing the risk of low oxygen levels during exercise.

“Sometimes you have to get into the nitty-gritty, picky rules,” Marty said in an interview after the meeting. “The other side is: What’s enforceable? If it’s not enforceable, you have to go to something less fun.”

Gimenez, a Republican candidate for Congress, said he’ll be convening a public town hall next week to get public reaction to lifting some restrictions at a time of increasing tension over the pace of easing measures to slow the spread of COVID-19.

President Donald Trump on Friday tweeted his support to protesters of restrictions in Democratic-led states, declaring “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!”

Duval County went first this weekend, with Jacksonville beaches opening to swimming, running and walking. That quickly brought footage of once-empty beaches filling with residents enjoying the outdoors. Images of packed beaches during spring break earned Florida national scorn early in the coronavirus crisis last month, when Gov. Ron DeSantis resisted calls to close them.

In his private call, Gimenez called beaches the biggest challenge for a reopening strategy, participants said.

Marty said swimming in the ocean would be fine unless there was a sewage spill sending coronavirus into the water through human waste. She said if monitoring for waste wasn’t possible, swimmers should be told to close their mouths and shower after leaving the water.

Gimenez’s office has not released the task force’s recommendations, which were due to the mayor in writing before the teleconference.

In speaking to reporters, Gimenez previewed some of the rules discussed, including a four-person limit on boats no longer than 25 feet. A draft of proposed rules would allow more people on larger boats, with up to eight adults for boats 37 feet or longer.

Boats would also be required to keep at least 50 feet between them, and rafting would be prohibited. A jampacked boat party at the Haulover Sandbar on March 21 sparked Gimenez’s original order to close all marinas and boat ramps across Miami-Dade. Waterfront homes were not covered by the order.

“You have your haves and your have nots,” said Rodney Barreto, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission board member and former chairman who is head of the panel recommending a marina reopening plan to Gimenez. “The people who live on the water have access to their boats, people with [boats on] trailers have no access.”

Gimenez said resuming access to parks and other recreational options would mean strict adherence to the new restrictions needed to open them. “Police will be enforcing these rules with zero tolerance,” he said.

This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 9:13 PM.