Coronavirus live updates: Here’s what to know in South Florida on July 28
We’re keeping track of the latest news regarding the coronavirus in South Florida and around the state. Check back for updates throughout the day.
New and expanded recalls, ‘toxic’ methanol list additions: a hand sanitizer update
6:15 p.m.: A hand sanitizer company that supplied Walmart, Costco and other stores pulled three brands from the U.S. market. The FDA’s do-not-use-it-has-methanol hand sanitizer list has its first U.S. company.
And the first company on that list got an FDA warning letter saying, in part, stop claiming their hand sanitizer was “FDA Approved.”
The most recent recalls and yet another broad FDA warning about hand sanitizer with methanol hit email boxes Monday evening.
Read the full story here.
Once on New York’s COVID front line, nurses flock to Florida to provide reinforcement
5:15 p.m.: Amelia Stansberry had been watching the television news as the COVID cases mounted in New York in April and pondered how she’d like to quit her job and join the traveling nursing corps on the front lines.
“This small voice in the back of my head kept saying, ‘This is what I’m trained to do. What am I doing here when all my brothers and sisters in New York are drowning?’ ” said Stansberry, an ICU nurse for five years in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Her hospital had postponed all elective surgeries due to the coronavirus and dramatically reduced her hours but Stansberry, 37, couldn’t imagine asking her husband and 11-year-old daughter to let her leave. Then her husband made a suggestion: “Would you consider going there to help out New York?”
It was exactly the sign Stansberry needed to respond to her “small voice.” She applied for a job with Seattle-based NuWest Group Staffing, moved to New York City where she had never visited, and went to work for 13 weeks treating COVID-19 patients in the brutal epicenter of the global pandemic.
On Monday, Stansberry returned to the front lines, only this time she’s moved to Baptist Health of South Florida in Miami. She is now one of hundreds of medical staff from across the country recruited to relieve Florida hospitals pushed into surge mode and strained by weeks of rising case numbers and crowded ICUs.
Read the full story here.
Florida to discuss ideas about how bars might reopen. South Florida is different
4 p.m.: Florida’s top business regulator plans to start meeting with bar operators and craft brewers, amid concerns about establishments closing permanently if a state ban on serving drinks for on-site consumption remains in place.
In a tweet Saturday, Department of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary Halsey Beshears said he will begin setting aside time Friday to discuss his June 26 order that banned on-site consumption at bars to try to help stem the spread of COVID-19.
“Next week starting Friday, I’m going to set meetings throughout Florida with breweries and bars to discuss ideas on how to reopen,” Beshears tweeted. “We will come up with a Safe, Smart and Step-by-step plan based on input, science and relative facts on how to reopen as soon as possible.”
Read the full story here.
Nearly 3,000 South Florida businesses closed due to the pandemic — some forever
2:05 p.m.: Not every business is listed on the consumer review site Yelp. But of the many South Florida businesses that are, COVID-19 has claimed nearly 3,000.
A total of 2,991 businesses closed in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area between March 1 and July 10, according to a report from Yelp. That number includes temporary and permanent closures.
Professors at Florida’s 12 state universities, plus MDC, want remote-only courses in fall
1:46 p.m.: Citing the surge in Florida’s COVID-19 cases, thousands of professors who teach at state universities and colleges demanded that Gov. Ron DeSantis and state education officials immediately change course and move to remote-only courses when schools reopen in August.
Members of the United Faculty of Florida, the union that represents more than 20,000 instructors across the state, held a virtual press conference Monday to announce they sent a letter outlining their concerns to DeSantis; Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran; Marshall Criser, chancellor of the State University System of Florida; and Kathy Hebda, chancellor of the Florida College System, which represents public colleges.
“We love face-to-face teaching and miss our students, but, as much as our faculty and students fervently wish to get back to our classrooms, the steadily rising COVID-19 infections and deaths warn against it,” reads the document, signed by Karen Morian, UFF president, and Jaffar Ali Shahul Hameed, UFF first vice president.
Read the full story here.
First he got $4 million in COVID-19 relief loans. Then he bought a Lamborghini
1:15 p.m.: One of the first things David T. Hines bought when he got $4 million in COVID-19 relief loans from the feds for his supposedly ailing South Florida moving business was a super-luxury Lamborghini Huracan Evo, authorities say.
Needless to say, the Italian-made sports car — purchased by Hines in May for $318,497 — was not on the list of permissible expenses under a Small Business Administration loan program meant to protect employees and cover other legitimate costs like rent during the coronavirus pandemic.
Hines, who was arrested Friday, also spent thousands of dollars on dating websites, jewelry and clothes, along with stays at high-end hotels such as the Fontainebleau and Setai on Miami Beach.
Read the full story here.
Miami Marlins remain in Philadelphia after four more positive COVID-19 tests
1:05 p.m.: The Miami Marlins are remaining in Philadelphia on Tuesday after their latest round of COVID-19 testing resulted in four more positive tests among players, according to two sources.
That brings the total to 15 players among the 33 who traveled for their season-opening series and 17 members overall of the organization’s traveling party.
However, one of the players who had previously tested positive produced a negative result Tuesday, according to a source. Two consecutive negative tests taken more than 24 hours apart are required to be involved in team activities or use team facilities.
Read the full story here.
Florida hits new record with 186 coronavirus deaths, pushing the toll past 6,000
11:40 a.m.: Florida’s Department of Health on Tuesday morning confirmed 9,230 additional cases of COVID-19, bringing the state’s known total to 441,977. There were also 186 new Florida resident deaths announced, increasing the statewide resident death toll to 6,117.
The 186 deaths mark the highest single-day death toll announced by the Florida Department of Health since the pandemic began, but it does not necessarily mean that every person died in the past 24 hours.
Five new non-resident deaths were also announced, bringing the non-resident death toll to 123.
Read the full story here.
In rush to spend $474 million from CARES, Miami-Dade cuts money for city COVID relief
11:05 a.m.: Miami-Dade cities may sue for a larger share of a $474 million pool of federal COVID relief dollars that county commissioners have been racing to allocate to charities, businesses and residents across the county.
The administration of Mayor Carlos Gimenez this month slashed a planned $135 million allocation to cities to just $30 million, inflaming an already tense stand-off over how much of the federal CARES Act should be spent at the municipal level and how much should be distributed by Miami-Dade.
“This is going to be a class-action lawsuit,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said after addressing county commissioners during his allotted two minutes in Monday’s online meeting of the board with the authority to spend the federal dollars. Suarez called the county’s latest $30 million earmark for the county’s 34 cities “grossly unfair” and robbing municipalities of the ability to set spending priorities at the most local of levels.
Read the full story here.
Fauci: MLB doesn’t have to stop, but Marlins’ COVID-19 outbreak ‘could put it in danger’
10:15 a.m.: Dr. Anthony Fauci said he does not believe at this time the Major League Baseball season needs to canceled following the Miami Marlins’ recent coronavirus outbreak but added that it could be the first step of putting the 2020 season in jeopardy.
Thirteen members of the organization, including 11 players, tested positive for COVID-19 since arriving in Philadelphia on Wednesday for their season-opening series against the Philadelphia Phillies. That included three positive tests being revealed just before the morning of their series finale at Citizens Bank Park and nine more tests coming back positive Monday morning. The team remains quarantined in Philadelphia as they await the results of additional COVID-19 tests. The Marlins’ first home series against the Baltimore Orioles, set for Monday and Tuesday, was postponed.
‘It’s apparent that they’re failing’: As Florida inmate deaths soar, families feel dread
10: 05 a.m.: Over the span of the past 72 hours, the inmate death toll related to COVID-19 in Florida’s prisons increased by nearly 28%, raising the total number of inmate deaths from 36 to 46 over the weekend.
As the case count and deaths accelerate, inmates’ families and advocates wonder if the Florida Department of Corrections has an alternate plan to prevent and treat COVID-19. They say whatever the prison system is doing doesn’t seem to be working.
“If no one takes notice, they are going to kill our loved ones,” said Cynthia Cooper, whose husband is incarcerated at Columbia Correctional Institution in Lake City, where at least three men have died. “I never thought I’d see the day when I was afraid of something more than him just being in prison. But it’s come to that.”
Read the full story here.
Jackson Health union makes plea for statewide mask mandate in Florida
9:30 a.m.: The union that represents 5,000 nurses and doctors at Jackson Health System called for a statewide mask mandate to curb the surging number of cases of the novel coronavirus across the state.
“We’re asking today for Governor DeSantis to become the leader we need him to be and stand up at this pandemic time and have ... a strategic plan to battle COVID-19 and win,” Martha Baker, president of SEIU Local 1991 and a registered nurse, said during a virtual press conference.
Baker praised Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez for requiring masks in their communities and fining individualswho refuse to comply.
Read the full story here.
CATCH UP TO START THE DAY
9:25 a.m.: Here are the coronavirus headlines to catch you up on what’s happening around South Florida and the state as Tuesday begins.
▪ Container holding corpses at Hialeah funeral home raises fear of coronavirus spread
▪ Vice President Pence visits Miami for launch of Phase 3 of COVID vaccine clinical trial
▪ Florida adds 8,892 new coronavirus cases, lowest in weeks, as state total hits 432,000
▪ After a party, 18 anesthesiologists at UF hospital system diagnosed with COVID
This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 9:52 AM with the headline "Coronavirus live updates: Here’s what to know in South Florida on July 28."
