Miami-Dade mayor: Wear masks because closing businesses again ‘brings so much suffering’
When COVID numbers started looking bad again two weeks ago, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez announced a crackdown on emergency business rules and declared the economy would remain fully open. “We’re not going back at this point,” he said on June 18.
On Thursday, with coronavirus statistics in Miami-Dade the worst ever, that optimism was gone from Gimenez’s public statements.
“No one wants to go back to close nonessential businesses. I certainly do not,” Gimenez said at a press conference Thursday morning at Charles Hadley Park in the Liberty City area of Miami. “I know how much suffering that has caused for working families. So please, everybody, follow the rules.”
His statement came an hour after Gimenez enacted a new emergency order requiring facial coverings in most public places, including outdoors even when nobody else is around. Behind him, a crew of about 20 people prepared to head out into the neighborhood with bags of sanitizer, masks and educational materials on how to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“A lot of people in the neighborhood don’t have masks,” said Sinclair Manley, part of the Circle of Brotherhood team handing out the supplies as part of Miami-Dade’s “surge” operations into neighborhoods with the highest infection rates. “They’re very appreciative.”
The last week saw Gimenez roll back some reopening rules but not enough to shut down any businesses. He ordered restaurants to close dining rooms at midnight, beaches closed for the Fourth of July long weekend, and imposed temporary restrictions on hotel pools, too.
Coronavirus and the emergency rules closing businesses devastated Miami-Dade’s economy. Tax data released Thursday illustrated a chunk of the damage. A tax on restaurants located outside of hotels plunged 60 percent in May, compared to the prior year. That was slightly better than April’s drop of 63 percent. And while local residents drive restaurant sales, collection of hotel taxes have plunged even more. Hotel tax revenues were down 89 percent in May.
Earlier in the week, Gimenez said a resumption of closure orders would likely work backwards from how they were lifted. The most recent lifting of a closure order applied to gyms, fitness centers and dance studios.
They were allowed to reopen June 8. Summer camps got the green light June 4. Gimenez lifted his original beach closure order in late May but delayed it after racial-justice demonstrations in Miami prompted an extensive police presence and countywide curfews.
Infection rates are highest in working-class neighborhoods including Miami neighborhoods of Allapattah, plus Brownsville, Little Havana and in Florida City in South Miami-Dade, Gimenez said Thursday. He said his administration was not reviewing emergency rules governing how businesses operate during COVID, including protections for workers.
“The rules are fine,” he said, wearing a blue Jackson Memorial mask. “The rules were formulated with our doctors. ... If we all maintain our distance and if we all wear our mask and if we all wash our hands, how are you going to get sick?”
This story was originally published July 2, 2020 at 1:54 PM.