Reopening the Florida Keys is a matter of timing. The big question for leaders is when
When will the Florida Keys reopen to visitors?
That’s the question on everyone’s mind as Monroe County leaders start work on a “framework” to relax some of the restrictions along the island chain.
And right now, those restrictions are strict. Hotels closed. Restaurants closed. Even the road in and out closed to anyone who doesn’t live or work in the Keys.
The plan in the works involves a phased reopening for residents first. On Wednesday, leaders said the “final phase” will be lifting the two traffic checkpoints in the Upper Keys keeping out tourists and other visitors.
For now, though, county officials said there is no timetable for unbuttoning some of the buttoning up of the Keys since the COVID-19 pandemic forced shutdowns in March.
“How do we release some of this cabin fever that people validly feel,” said Bob Eadie, administrator of the Florida Department of Health in Monroe County. “People should indeed be rewarded because it’s the majority of them staying at home and avoiding nonessential travel that’s enabled us to keep the spread of the disease as low as we have.”
Monroe County Mayor Heather Carruthers said there is no predicted date on when some of the restrictions will be lifted because those decisions will be made based on data from the Department of Health and other medical professionals in the Keys.
“We are making any decisions about meeting benchmarks based on input from the medical community and the Department of Health,” she said. “We will be analyzing data from number of cases within the county as well as testing data, as that continues to roll out, and also the metrics from our nearby markets and tourism hubs.”
A good starting point, the county said Wednesday in a statement, is possibly after the Keys reports a two-week streak of declining infections.
Keys residents, like other Floridians, can’t eat in restaurants, go to bars or shop at businesses deemed nonessential. But the Keys so far haven’t been considered a COVID-19 hot spot, such as its mainland South Florida neighbors Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Carruthers said earlier this week that there is little appetite in Monroe to open the Keys to visitors until counties to the north significantly ease their restrictions.
As of Wednesday morning, the Keys hadn’t added a confirmed case of the novel coronavirus since Saturday. The total count of known cases stood at 73, with three deaths and 11 hospitalizations.
Eadie, along with other county leaders, said reopening the Keys is not the same thing as relaxing some rules for residents. He wants more testing, closer to 10 to 20 percent rather than the current rate, which is just above 1 percent of the population — about 74,000.
“Monroe County is not yet in recovery mode, but has begun coordinating the framework with local municipalities, to ensure a safe and unified approach to the ‘new normal,’” according to a statement released Wednesday by county spokeswoman Kristen Livengood.
“Monroe County Emergency Management began designing the draft framework to discuss relaxing the protective measures in the Florida Keys once the threat of COVID-19 begins to ease for Florida Keys residents,” Livengood wrote.
The first phases of reopening are meant to provide “some relief for residents” of the Keys, leaders say.
Those include opening beaches and other recreational areas throughout Monroe County and to start reopening non-essential businesses.
The county has kept its beaches open except for Higgs Beach in Key West, which the city asked Monroe to close due to people gathering in groups larger than 10. However, municipalities like Key West, Marathon and Islamorada have closed their beaches.
Easing restrictions in the Keys is a process leaders will based on data and advice from the Florida Department of Health and will include relaxing protective measures such as wearing face masks in public, allowing restaurants to return to on-site dining and allowing more than 10 people to gather at one time.
Municipalities like Key West, which imposed tough restrictions before the county followed the state’s lead, can always keep their rules in place. They just can’t be less restrictive than the county.
“Our checkpoint at 112.5 is very important to us. That is something very sacred that the county is going to fight for very fervently,” Key West Mayor Teri Johnston said Tuesday evening at a City Commission meeting.
“We’re going to work well with everyone,” said Key West City Manager Greg Veliz. “But Key West is unique and we’re going to have to sit down and develop what we expect Key West to look like, following within the guidelines set forth by the governor and guidelines set forth by the county. We have to make sure Key West is protected.”
While the exact numbers relating to the financial impact of the pandemic aren’t in yet, Keys businesses have been hammered by the shutdown. With nearly 42 percent of the private sector workforce in the hospitality and leisure industry, the county is likely to show scars from the COVID-19 crisis for a long time.
“Monroe County is the most affected by this shutdown in the state of Florida,” said Elizabeth Moscynski, president of the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce.
Simply put, the Keys cannot survive without tourists.
“There is no diversification of industry in Monroe County like there is in other counties,” she said.
The Key Largo chamber is putting together a task force of business people in the area that is meeting this week to discuss what opening up the Keys would look like. The group is expected to discuss how to get the economy going again while balancing health and safety.
But Moscynski reiterated that visitors sooner or later must be allowed to return, or else the county won’t be able to recover.
“Almost every sector of business in Monroe County relies on tourism, including the residents and county government,” Moscynski said.
Farther down the Keys, Judy Hull, president of the Islamorada Chamber of Commerce, said any plan should consider which businesses are safer to open than others. She said there is a risk of reopening too soon and causing more economic damage if the Keys then see an increase in infections.
“We also need to weigh the possibility of a virus relapse by relying on scientific data,” Hull said. “We are all in this together, and we need to be wise, not necessarily fast.”
This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 4:08 PM.
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