Miami joins county, Miami Beach in closing summer camps in local parks as COVID spreads

Miami-Dade’s Parks system has decided it can’t continue with summer camps during the COVID-19 pandemic and ended the programs early.

COVID had already upended the county’s summer camps, with most forced to close after employees tested positive for the coronavirus. Laura Phillips, a Parks Department spokeswoman, said 20 of the county’s 36 camps had already closed. Nineteen of those had employees who tested positive for the virus, and one had two children who tested positive, she said. Miami Beach is closing its summer camps next week.

The summer camp closures expanded Tuesday when Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced that the city would be closing summer camps at parks across the city after July 27. One child at Henderson Park, a pair of siblings at Coral Gate Park and a counselor at Shenandoah Park have tested positive.

The announcement led to questions of whether school classrooms should reopen, to which Suarez said he had concerns at this point.

“You’re talking about 350,000 students plus teachers. That’s almost 400,000 people,” he said. “When you talk about a super-spreader event, when you’re talking about people getting together and opening up a huge sector of our economy, major concern.”

Friday was the final day for the remaining county summer camps and for those that were to reopen, instead of the planned end on Aug. 7. The Parks Department didn’t publicize the decision but notified parents by letter and posted information on its website. Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who oversees the county’s Parks Department, had lifted emergency closures of all camps on June 4.

“With the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in our community and in an abundance of caution, we will be closing our general and nature camps at the end of this week’s session on Friday, July 17th,” the department said on the website. “Registrations will not be accepted for the following weeks, and if needed, refunds will be issued for any pre-registrations or advance payments you have made.”

Gimenez has not issued a countywide order forcing other camps to close. Instead, the county chose to close the camps operated by the Parks Department. No announcement was made to the media about the closure of county summer camps, a spokeswoman confirmed.

On Monday, Miami Beach announced it would allow city camps to operate for another week before closing on July 27.

“We felt that it was important to provide parents with notice so that they can make alternate child-care arrangements,” city spokeswoman Melissa Berthier said Monday. She emphasized that parks remain open, as they do in the county. “Our Parks & Recreation staff continues to strictly abide by our COVID-19 protocols,” she said.

Camps have been closing in the county system and beyond as staff and children tested positive for the virus. Miami Beach reported nine camp staffers that tested positive for COVID and one child.

Like Miami-Dade, Miami and Miami Beach are closing camps operated at city parks not but imposing emergency rules barring all camps.

The virus threat had already cut deeply into camp attendance and budgets. While Miami Beach usually has space for up to 1,000 campers a day at its various camps in parks across the city, this summer saw a sharp drop in demand. To manage social distancing, Miami Beach cut its attendance cap to about 350 children per day, and attendance hovered around 150 last week, Berthier said.

This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 6:57 PM.