One case of coronavirus interrupts life in a small town and frightens residents

Fear and frustration are mounting in Bay Harbor Islands, a town that has about 6,000 people and consists of two adjacent islands sitting atop Biscayne Bay. After residents were told that an employee at the town’s community center had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, they scrambled for solutions that, in large part, local and state officials couldn’t provide.

About 1,100 people, including some from neighboring Surfside and Bal Harbour just north of Miami Beach, dialed into a telephonic town hall Friday afternoon. They were seeking answers from the town mayor and manager, a state health official, and several medical experts.

“We have been overwhelmed with calls this morning from residents seeking answers,” Mayor Stephanie Bruder said as the call began.

But when a Bay Harbor resident said his wife works with children who might have had contact with the infected employee, and that she had recently come down with a high fever but still couldn’t access a testing kit, there wasn’t much the officials could offer.

Yesenia Diaz Villalta, the director of the Miami-Dade County office of the Florida Department of Health, told the resident to have his wife call the office’s epidemiology department, offering a phone number. But the resident said he had already tried that, both in Miami-Dade and Broward County, and that the response was the same: Because his wife didn’t travel overseas and didn’t have direct contact with the affected employee, she doesn’t qualify to be tested for COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

“I’ve called everyone. They just tell us, ‘Oh, there’s nothing we can do,’ ” he said. “Who knows if we’re passing [the virus] along.”

Another resident said he has children who take a Portuguese language class twice a week at the Morris N. Broad Community Center, where the affected employee works. One of the other children in the class has developed a fever, he said, and parents are worried.

“I’m a very concerned parent,” he said.

He asked for more information about exactly where the employee has been: specifically, whether the employee chaperoned students between the community center and a nearby school, the Ruth K. Broad/Bay Harbor K-8 Center, which was shut down Friday after county officials learned that students interacted with the employee. Town officials said they didn’t know for sure.

It was one of South Florida’s first clear examples of the panic that surrounds the potential for COVID-19 to spread within communities, as it has elsewhere in the United States. There have been nine confirmed cases in Miami-Dade — the Bay Harbor employee isn’t one of them because the employee lives outside the county — but state officials have generally released only the county, not the municipality, for positive cases.

But in Bay Harbor — where state and local officials clashed earlier this week over the release of information before the employee was tested — residents in a tiny town suddenly found themselves wondering if they could have contracted a potentially deadly disease, or unwittingly spread it to their neighbors.

“If we wait for the symptoms,” one resident said, “it might be too late.”

In some ways, officials’ hands are tied. That’s due in large part to a lack of available testing kits, including at hospitals, a problem that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Donald Trump have now pledged to address.

When a Bay Harbor resident asked whether a drive-through testing center could become a reality in their town, as it has in a few other cities around the country, Villalta said it was “not in the works right now.”

“We’re trying to build capacity for the entire community,” she said. “This is evolving.”

Under the current testing criteria, many people who are feeling symptoms or suspect they had contact with someone who tested positive are still being turned away.

“We really don’t want to flood emergency rooms with people who do not meet the criteria,” Villalta said. “Unfortunately, it’s been a slow process. I hear you.”

Also making it difficult to assuage residents’ fears: Health professionals can’t reveal the identities of patients due to privacy laws. And, in this particular case, interim town attorney Frank Simone said during Friday’s phone call, the Americans with Disabilities Act prevents employers from talking about their employees’ health.

“We know everyone would like to know the identity of the employee,” Simone said. “However, the town, like any other employer, cannot reveal the identity of any employee who suffers from a medical condition.”

The local officials on the call did explain the steps they’ve taken so far. J.C. Jimenez, the town manager, said he hired a company for “terminal cleaning,” a method to prevent the spread of infection, at the school and community center. Town Hall was closed and will get the same treatment, he said, and local parks have been power-washed multiple times with disinfectant soap.

The school, the community center and all town parks have been closed. On Friday, county election officials picked up their equipment from Bay Harbor Islands Town Hall and the K-8 school, two precincts in next Tuesday’s presidential primary, and announced they were looking for new locations.

Town workers who had close contact with the affected employee are self-quarantining, Jimenez said. Villalta added that state health officials do their own legwork to find out where an affected person has been, then reach out to people who could have been exposed.

Health experts on the call mostly repeated the advice they’ve been giving the public for days: If you feel flu-like symptoms, contact a doctor or the Florida Department of Health for guidance. Self-isolate for 14 days if you think you’ve had close contact with an infected person. Wash your hands often.

For the K-8 students in Bay Harbor whose school was closed — hours before Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho announced district-wide closures starting Monday — the experts said kids should probably stay home for now.

“The school may be closed, but it’s not a time to have a playdate,” Villalta said. “Keep interaction with other individuals to a minimum.”

After almost an hour of fielding questions from more than 20 people, town officials said many more were still waiting to ask questions and invited them to leave a voicemail as the call concluded.

Say Salomon, a doctor at Chen Senior Medical Center, told the residents he understands there are a lot of unknowns. What they can do, he said, is to try to avoid the potential spread of COVID-19 as much as possible.

And, Salomon said, “try to stay calm.”

In a notice to residents late Friday night, town officials sent a similar message.

“The Town of Bay Harbor is NOT under quarantine,” the notice said in bold letters. “We have taken steps to limit the spread of COVID-19.”

This story was originally published March 14, 2020 at 2:26 PM.