In Miami-Dade, signs Christmas may overlap with a new COVID wave as omicron spreads

The fall brought a COVID lull in Miami-Dade County as administrators lifted emergency rules and virus statistics hit all-time lows. Those days are over, as Miami-Dade braces for the omicron variant’s full impact and holiday gatherings ramp up ahead of Christmas.

“We cannot allow our hospitals to be overwhelmed with cases,” Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a press conference Thursday announcing her revival of an emergency order requiring hospitals to report daily COVID patient counts, intensive-care availability and other pandemic metrics the county stopped collecting last month.

Miami-Dade is seeing a spike in COVID-19 tests coming back positive — an average of 7% now, versus 1% a month ago, according to county data. The first sequencing of viral results from those tests confirms a scattering of omicron cases in Miami-Dade, but experts assume the actual count will be much higher as analysis catches up with real-time results.

Omicron is in Miami-Dade, and likely spreading quickly

“Data more than one week old may grossly underestimate the prevalence of omicron that is currently circulating,” said Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida’s college of public health, in an email to the Herald. “The best explanation for these pronounced increases is a rapidly spreading omicron variant, and I would anticipate increasing cases, test positivity, and prevalence of the omicron lineages in the coming weeks.”

Professional sports teams are feeling the strain as COVID infections spread across rosters.

Even with high vaccination rates, all three North American sports leagues currently playing their seasons — the NHL, NFL and NBA — are seeing upticks in positive cases as the omicron variant spreads.

Florida Panthers have COVID roster troubles

For their game against the Los Angeles Kings Thursday night, the Florida Panthers were heading to the ice short-handed.

As of Thursday afternoon, the Panthers had five players — forwards Ryan Lomberg, Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe as well as defensemen Brandon Montour and Radko Gudas — plus one member of the team’s travel party in the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol. By evening, the team announced two more players, Aaron Ekblad and Frank Vatrano, were added to the COVID list as well.

The Miami Dolphins have six players on the NFL’s reserved/COVID-19 list — including each of their top three running backs in Myles Gaskin, Salvon Ahmed and Phillip Lindsay as well as safety Jevon Holland and rookie wide receiver Jaylen Waddle and practice squad running back Gerrid Doaks. The team has won its last five games, and is preparing for a Sunday home game against the New York Jets.

The Dolphins players who have tested positive are quarantining in a hotel. It’s unclear if any of them have symptoms, though co-offensive coordinator Eric Studesville said this week that “some feel better than others.”

If the COVID spread is rattling teams’ plans for pre-holiday games, the virus also presents a revived worry for family and friends who may have missed last year’s festivities out of COVID fears.

While the 2020 holiday season landed in a COVID-19 uptick as well, vaccinations were largely unavailable to the general public then. For 2021, Miami-Dade is in its 12th month of vaccine distribution and state statistics report most of the population has vaccinated against the virus.

Early reports of the omicron variant suggest it is more likely to infect a vaccinated person than the delta variant is, but also less likely to result in serious illness. But experts warn it’s too early in omicron’s existence to be definitive about its risk to people vaccinated against the virus.

Miami-Dade mayor: Eat Christmas dinner outside

At a Thursday press conference, Levine Cava said outdoor meals would be safest during the holidays as the COVID risk increases.

“Please take your gathering outside into this beautiful weather. Gathering outdoors, we know, reduces the risks significantly of transmission,” she said. “Wear your masks around large crowds of people, people you don’t know are vaccinated.”

Levine Cava said she had no plans to return mandatory mask rules for county buildings, a restriction she put in place during the surge of the delta variant in July and which she lifted on Nov. 5. Levine Cava urged people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and to receive booster shots, which research shows is a particularly helpful protection against omicron.

She said Miami-Dade this week launched an outreach operation to bring free booster shots — as well as first-time vaccinations — to homebound residents. Anyone interested can call 888-201-5490 or email vaccinations@ilshealth.com.

The extra effort on boosters comes as metrics tracking COVID-19 are rising in Miami-Dade and across Florida.

A spike in COVID cases at University of Miami

At the University of Miami, which maintains a public dashboard of COVID cases among students and faculty, the trends show spikes in recent days. There were 77 reported student cases on Wednesday, compared to just one case on Dec. 1. On Thursday night, Jackson Health System announced it would only allow one visitor for patient as the public hospital sees an increase in COVID-19 patient admissions.

Florida on Thursday reported 117 more deaths and 6,381 additional COVID-19 cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Miami Herald calculations of CDC data.

This is the largest dump of newly reported cases since September. The CDC backlogs cases and deaths for Florida on Tuesdays and Thursdays, sometimes leading to big increases. All but three of the newly reported deaths — about 97% — occurred since Nov. 18, according to the Herald analysis. About 63% of the newly reported have died in the past two weeks, the analysis showed.

Regular COVID analysis of the county’s sewage system has confirmed the presence of omicron, and a sampling of COVID test results at county testing centers at the start of December also detected the variant.

In Miami-Dade, at least six cases of the omicron variant have been detected. Levine Cava’s office confirmed Thursday that five of 373 samples sequenced — or 1%— of tests taken around two weeks ago were cases caused by the omicron variant. The rest were lineages of the delta variant.

On Dec. 10, CardioPath, a private lab in Doral, confirmed the county’s first case.

The previous positive 746 samples sequenced by Nomi Health, the healthcare company Miami-Dade partnered with for testing, vaccination and sequencing, were all caused by delta lineages. These samples dated back to tests taken since Oct. 31.

Demand for COVID test spikes ahead of holidays

County testing sites, including Tropical Park, are seeing a spike in demand this week. The head of the Miami-Dade testing operation said that’s likely a mix of more people getting sick, as well as rising interest in tests over the holidays, be it as a precaution before traveling to visit family or testing requirements for flying into foreign airports.

“We’ve actually seen a spike in test demand over the last several days. We’re adding staff. We’re working around the clock,” said Ron Goncalves, Florida general manager for Nomi Health, which has the county contract for vaccination and testing sites.

“What was normally a 15-minute wait here has gone up to an hour in some instances,” he said from the testing site at Tropical Park, where cars backed up into Bird Road from the park’s entrance. “We are working diligently to reduce those wait times.”

Miami Herald staff writers Devoun Cetoute, Ana Claudia Chacin, Anthony Chiang, Barry Jackson, Jordan McPherson and Daniel Oyefusi contributed to this report.

This story was originally published December 16, 2021 at 7:45 PM.