Florida implores spring partiers to be careful

After the fledgling pandemic forced an early end to Florida’s annual spring break bacchanal in 2020, the state is wide open this time around and — for some — irresistible.

Walt Disney World’s four parks, operating at reduced capacity, have no more tickets available through March 25. Photos from popular beach destinations this month have shown large, occasionally raucous crowds of unmasked revelers. Over the weekend, Miami Beach police arrested 100 and pepper sprayed “unruly” spring breakers.

Flights are cheap. Travel restrictions are nonexistent, and the state reopened its economy months ago.

Public health experts point out that spring break visitors are likely to be young and unvaccinated — and participants in highrisk behavior like hanging out in bars and packed clubs.

“It’s a perfect formula for spreading the disease,” said Eric Toner, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “Even though we’re doing much better now than we were several months ago with the incidence of COVID-19, we’re still at a level nationally that last summer we would have thought was alarmingly high.”

The crowds descend as Florida has added another 31,603 coronavirus cases and 605 deaths in the past seven days, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency said the state also leads the nation in reported cases caused by the variants that were first identified in the United Kingdom and Brazil.

“The state has relaxed nearly all of its restrictions and containment measures,” Toner said. “And so there’s every reason to think that there’ll be high rates of transmission.”

For Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, that all adds up to a “challenging” situation.