South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Partying spreads virus among college students in Palm Beach County.
While Palm Beach County is spending significant effort in safeguarding students in classrooms from COVID-19, health officials are growing more worried about what happens after they leave school.
On Tuesday, Florida health officials reported 495 more young people in the age 15-to-24 group have been infected, making up 20% of all new cases. In Palm Beach County, that age group accounted for 29% of new coronavirus cases, according to the latest state report.
One day after Palm Beach County officially reopened schools for in-person instruction, Dr. Alina Alonso, Palm Beach County’ s Health Department Director, voiced concerns over the growing number of cases in the 15-24 age range.
Alonso, however, said she doesn’t expect a large surge among kids in elementary or middle schools, but rather older students — specifically high school seniors and college students — who “venture out to start doing the things that we tell them not to do.”
“Universities — that’s where we’re seeing our large number of positivity,” Alonso said Tuesday during a briefing at the Palm Beach County commissioners meeting. “Not on campus, but when they go off-campus.
“Palm Beach Atlantic and FAU are very concerned about the cities right next to them, where despite all their efforts to tell the student body to behave in a certain way when they go out in the city, whether it be Delray, Boca or West Palm Beach, they see very bad behavior.”
Located in Boca Raton, Florida Atlantic University has an enrollment of roughly 30,000 students. Palm Beach Atlantic, which has approximately 3,700 students, is located less than a half a mile from Clematis Street in West Palm Beach, a popular nightlife spot filled with dozens of restaurants and bars.
Across the state, over half of the new infections reported Tuesday in the 15-24 age group are in counties with major universities such as University of Florida, Florida State University, University of Central Florida and University of South Florida.
“The schools [in Palm Beach County] are trying the best they can to try and keep the campuses safe, but what we get from our contact tracing is it’s either the clubs that they’re going to or the house parties ,” Alonso said.
“What’s very popular now is the gathering at parking lots at nights and then having tailgate parties, so they have found a new venture to be able to gather and have fun, so we’ve got to keep all those things in line,” she said.
Alonso’s comments came as Palm Beach County’s positivity rate increased to its highest rate in weeks. After 12 straight days below the 5% positivity mark, Palm Beach County’s overall rate jumped to 6.74% on Tuesday.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Commissioner Melissa McKinlay also raised concerns about house parties, specifically in relation to drunk driving. With bars still shuttered and restaurants being required to close at midnight, McKinlay said she’s heard reports of people leaving restaurants and driving under the influence to parties.
M cK in lay, who’s preached caution in reopening bars, said the commission may need to reexamine the current restrictions.
“You’ve got to pick the lesser of two evils sometimes,” McKinlay said. “The thought of a couple hundred young adults driving drunk out to Loxahatchee scares me just as much as COVID does, so we do need to start looking at how we’re going to slowly reopen those types of businesses.
“As much as it scares me, I think one of the ways we can avoid that we can avoid that type of behavior is we extend the hours of operation beyond midnight.”