Miami, Miami Beach mayors say no new restrictions yet, despite rising COVID-19 numbers

The mayors of Miami and Miami Beach said Monday that they are concerned about the increasing totals and positive test rates of novel coronavirus cases in Miami-Dade County, but that they won’t yet roll back the reopening of their cities’ economies or order residents to stay at home.

“There are major concerns,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said at a press conference with Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber at Miami City Hall. “Now is not the time to let your guard down.”

But two hours later, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez held a press conference of his own and painted a different picture. He suggested the county’s increasing number of COVID-19 cases is a direct result of increased testing, and that the rate of positive tests “remains relatively stable.”

“If we see a true spike over a 14-day period, we will do what we have to do to change course,” Gimenez told reporters during the virtual press conference. “But for now, we are headed in the right direction.”

Suarez said the Florida Department of Health told elected officials Monday that, over the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 in Miami-Dade County has jumped by 13 per day on average, while the percentage of positive tests has increased by 0.11% per day.

If the county continues along this path, Suarez said, “we’re gonna be put in a situation where we have to make tough choices.”

“We’re kind of sounding the alarm,” he added.

But from a policy standpoint, Suarez, Gelber and Gimenez all reached the same conclusion: They don’t believe it’s necessary at this point to shut down businesses and public spaces that have been reopened across South Florida in recent weeks, including restaurants and beaches.

All three officials also said they don’t have plans to open additional businesses, such as movie theaters, bars and nightclubs, anytime soon.

“Probably not for a while,” Gimenez said of opening additional types of businesses, calling bars and clubs in particular “really problematic” for the spread of COVID-19.

Cities have been allowed to be more restrictive than counties in their emergency coronavirus measures, a power that Suarez and Gelber have wielded over the past few months. When Gimenez let most nonessential businesses reopen with restrictions May 18, for example, the cities of Miami, Miami Beach, Hialeah and Miami Gardens instead went with a May 20 reopening for nonessential retail and May 27 for restaurants.

Suarez and Gelber said that, despite their worries about case numbers and positive test rates, the data on another key metric, hospitalizations, is less concerning. The county’s hospital bed capacity has stayed between 62% and 66% over “a long period,” Suarez said.

“I think the biggest metric we’re looking at now is the hospitalizations,” Suarez said. Closing parts of the economy again would be a “last resort,” he said, but if hospitals are in crisis the option would be on the table.

Gimenez agreed that the county still has “plenty of hospital capacity.”

Gelber said it was “pretty clear” that there would be spikes in COVID-19 cases as the economy reopened, but he argued that governments and the public no longer need to keep businesses shuttered to address those concerns. People can wear masks, he said, and officials can conduct contact tracing to isolate those who are infected.

“Although we’re loosening the economy [restrictions], which we must, we have to do it responsibly, we have to do it cautiously and we have to follow these guidelines,” Gelber said. But, he added, “we can’t allow the economy to crater so quickly that the economic woes equal the public health woes.”

In Miami-Dade County, the volume of hospitalized COVID-19 patients ticked up to 607 on Monday, the highest that number had been in the past two weeks. However, the overall trend of hospitalizations has gone slightly downward since early June.

Meanwhile, the percentage of positive tests reported Monday in Miami-Dade was 11.6% — 280 cases out of 2,411 tests. The two-week average is 7.8%, a figure Gimenez cited Monday to say the county is staying below the 10% positive rate officials have cited as one metric for reopening.

Statewide, the number and rate of new COVID-19 cases were rising last week, according to a Miami Herald analysis — a troubling indicator that the disease could be spreading more quickly. The 64 counties that moved into Gov. Ron DeSantis’ second phase of reopening June 5, which excluded South Florida, saw a near 42% increase in new cases the week before that could not be explained by increased testing alone. Testing had increased by only 8% over the same period.

Florida’s Department of Health on Monday morning confirmed 1,758 additional cases of COVID-19, bringing the state total to more than 77,000 confirmed cases of the disease.

There were also seven new deaths announced Monday, raising the statewide toll to 2,938.

This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 4:23 PM.