It’s party lockdown in Miami
Crowds resist night curfew as city officials say the gathering is a threat to public safety
Pointing to over 1000 arrests in one of America’s top party spots, Miami Beach officials warned that the unruly spring-break crowd gathering by the thousands, fighting in the streets, destroying restaurant property and refusing to wear masks has become a serious threat to public safety.
During a last-minute meeting yesterday, city officials voted to extend a highly unusual 8 pm curfew for another week along famed South Beach, with the possibility of extending it well into April if needed, and stressed this isn’t the typical spring-break crowd. They said it’s not college students, but adults looking to let loose in one of the few states fully open during the pandemic.
Law enforcement officers from at least four other agencies, along with SWAT teams, were added to help contain the raucous crowds, but it wasn’t enough. After days of partying, including several confrontations with police, Miami Beach officials enacted the curfew from 8 pm until 6 am, forcing restaurants to stop outdoor seating entirely during the three-day emergency period, and encouraging local businesses to voluntarily shut down. More than half of the more than 1000 arrests were people from out of state, said City Manager Raul Aguila, adding many are coming “to engage in lawlessness and an anything goes party attitude.”
Officers in bullet proof vests dispersed pepper spray balls into a defiant, but mostly nonviolent crowd, refusing to submit to the curfew. Some people responded by jumping on top of cars, twerking and throwing money into the air.
Meanwhile, despite the clamour to speed up the United States vaccination drive against Covid-19 and get the country back to normal, the first three months of the rollout suggest faster is not necessarily better.
A surprising new analysis found that states such as South Carolina, Florida and Missouri that raced ahead of others to offer the vaccine to ever-larger groups of people have vaccinated smaller shares of their population than those that moved more slowly and methodically, such as Hawaii and Connecticut.
The explanation, as experts see it, is that the rapid expansion of eligibility caused a surge in demand too big for some states to handle and led to serious disarray. Vaccine supplies proved insufficient or unpredictable, websites crashed and phone lines became jammed, spreading confusion, frustration and resignation among many people.
“The infrastructure just wasn’t ready. It kind of backfired,” said Dr Rebecca Wurtz, a health data specialist at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. She added: “In the rush to satisfy everyone, governors satisfied few and frustrated many.”
Conspiracy theories, poor communication and undependable shipments slowed efforts after the first vials of precious vaccine arrived on December 14. But the size of the eligible population was always within the control of state officials, who made widely varying decisions about how many people they invited to get in line when there wasn’t enough vaccine to go around. —AP