An elected leader in the Keys has COVID as cases spike and a new mask rule approved
A vaccinated Florida Keys politician was hospitalized Aug. 14 after testing positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, as cases spike along the island chain, Monroe County commissioners voted to require masks inside local government buildings.
Monroe County Commissioner Mike Forster on Thursday was in stable condition at Baptist Hospital in Kendall, according to friend Susanne Bloy.
Forster had gotten the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine, Bloy said.
“We are all praying for you, Mike,” County Mayor Michelle Coldiron said Wednesday at a commission meeting in Key West, after reading a statement Bloy had sent to the commission. “Stay strong for us.”
Last week, Monroe County had a 22.4% positivity rate and the county was averaging 74 new cases a day, WLRN reported on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, 95 new cases reported, said Bob Eadie, administrator of the Florida Department of Health in Monroe County. In Monroe County about 45,049 people are fully vaccinated, or 60.7% of the county’s population.
Later on Wednesday, the commission voted 4-0 to require people wear masks inside county buildings unless they can social distance or have a documented medical reason why they can’t wear one.
“We need to do something,” said County Administrator Roman Gastesi before the vote. “Seventy-two, 74, 80 cases a day. We’ve never been there. So something’s going on. Just to wear a darn mask. I mean, come on. Who has to die, who has to go in the hospital for you all to realize that we’ve got a problem here that we have to respond to?”
Since Aug. 2, the city of Key West has required masks inside government buildings, without a social distance exception. Last week, the Monroe County School Board voted 4-0 to require masks inside school buildings but gave parents a choice to opt-out of the rule. The board plans to revisit the decision on Aug. 24.
Forster is the second county commissioner to be hospitalized with COVID-19.
Commissioner Craig Cates, of Key West, was hospitalized last fall after contracting the virus. Both his wife and daughter died after they were hospitalized.
On June 24, Cates posted on his Facebook page that Crystal had “lost her hard fought battle with COVID.” His wife Cheryl died in December. This month, the county released a video of Craig Cates urging people to get vaccinated, saying his family was devastated by COVID-19 before vaccines were available.
“Please get vaccinated so your family doesn’t suffer the losses my family and I have been through,” Cates says in the spot. “The only way out of this pandemic is vaccination.”
After not feeling well for about a week, Forster on Aug. 14 went to Mariners Hospital in Tavernier, where he tested positive for the virus. On the same day, he was transferred to Baptist Health’s flagship hospital in Kendall. Baptist Health also runs Mariners Hospital.
“At that time, Mariners felt it better that he be transported to [Baptist Hospital in Kendall] so he could get the necessary treatment he required,” Bloy wrote.
Forster, a longtime Village of Islamorada council member before winning the District 5 seat on the commission last year, owns the popular Upper Keys restaurant Mangrove Mike’s Cafe. District 5 covers Tavernier up to the Ocean Reef Club community in Key Largo.
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 7:51 AM.
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