Miami-Dade emergency order amendment makes it official: the Heat can resume practice
Gyms remain closed officially in Miami-Dade except for one: the NBA’s Miami Heat practice facility at AmericanAirlines Arena.
An amendment to Miami-Dade County Emergency Order 15-20, which closed gyms, pools, hot tubs to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, allows “the use of facilities owned or leased by a professional sports franchise, solely by employees of such franchise for training purposes.”
This exception, previewed in Wednesday’s remarks by Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, went into effect Friday at 6 p.m. The Heat plan to begin voluntary workouts Wednesday at the earliest.
Section 1 of the order closing pools, hot tubs, fitness centers and gyms now ends with, “Nothing contained herein shall preclude the use of facilities owned or leased by a professional sports franchise, solely by employees of such franchise for training purposes; however, prior to and as a precondition of engaging in such training, the franchise shall submit to and have approved by the County a plan addressing the franchise’s approach to mitigating COVID-19 risk at the facility through social distancing, periodic testing, or both.”
The 2019-20 NBA season came to a stop on March 11 and a restart date hasn’t been set. Practices officially will have restrictions on number of players.
