DeSantis approves reopening for Palm
Broward, Miami-Dade could follow May 18 if new cases decrease
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he will allow Palm Beach County to start reopening, ending weeks of lockdown from the new coronavirus.
Miami-Dade and Broward counties will remain closed down except for essential businesses, though DeSantis said he was hopeful those counties could move into Phase 1 reopening by May 18, provided the trends for new coronavirus cases are downward.
“I’ve looked at Palm Beach County’s request, and I am going to authorize Palm Beach County starting Monday to reopen under Phase 1,” the governor said to cheers from those attending Friday’s news conference in West Palm Beach.
Phase 1 reopening, according to state guidelines, means elective surgeries can recommence at hospitals, and restaurants will be
allowed to open at 25% capacity. Bars and gyms will remain closed, but barber shops, hair salons and nail salons will be allowed to open Monday across the state, except for Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
DeSantis announced his decision in West Palm Beach, at a testing site that will begin offering drivethru antibody testing for health care workers and first responders.
DeSantis said the antibody tests are important for measuring the number of people infected with the virus, but they’re especially vital for health care workers because “most people believe the antibodies confer immunity, we don’t know for how long, but at least there’s some immunity,” he said.
He also said that the rest of South Florida could join Palm Beach County in 10 days.
“We consulted with Broward and Dade on whether they were ready to open or not, and there was a sense that they needed a little more time,” DeSantis said. “We’d like to see them move into Phase 1 on the 18th.”
Phase 1 reopening initially did not include barber shops, hair salons and nail salons, but after the West Palm Beach new conference, DeSantis posted a video on Twitter announcing the change. These personal services will now be available in Palm Beach County and everywhere else in Florida under Phase 1 reopening.
At the same news conference, Palm Beach County Mayor Dave Kerner announced that May 18 will also see the reopening of beaches in the county.
All public, private and municipal beaches in the county can open from sunrise to sundown, with groups of no more than 10 people and social-distancing guidelines in place. Kerner and the rest of the Palm Beach County Commission
approved the beach reopening in a 4-3 vote Friday morning.
“It’s a long way from home, we’re gonna be deliberate,” DeSantis said. “You can put people back to work and still have procedures in place so these residents are cared for appropriately.”
Florida on Friday reported that 69 more people have died from the new coronavirus, bringing the total number of recorded deaths statewide to 1,669, more than half of them from South Florida.
South Florida leads the state in the number of people who have died from coronavirus-caused illness, according to figures released Friday by the Florida Department of Health. Broward, MiamiDade and Palm Beach counties have had 945 deaths, 39 more than on Thursday.
The governor also pointed to the millions of masks sent by the state to health care facilities and the presence of a mobile lab that has been in Miami and Fort Lauderdale over the past few days. DeSantis hopes to have the mobile testing lab visit around the state in the coming weeks.
The antibody tests to be administered in West Palm Beach are blood tests that can get results within 15 minutes.
The governor also announced rules put in place regarding the hospitalization of people who live in assisted-living facilities, “requiring that if you have a resident of a long-term care facility go to a hospital, even unrelated to coronavirus, that they’re tested for COVID-19.”
Those who test positive can’t be sent back to their homes in assisted-living facilities until they have had two successive negative tests.
The rules are meant to avoid outbreaks in assisted-living facilities, where the high number of elderly and infirm could mean flooding nearby hospitals with the sick and dying.
The number of coronavirus cases in the state has reached 39,199 — 371 more than it was 24 hours earlier.
Miami-Dade County, the Florida coronavirus hot spot, has 13,511 cases and 468 deaths, the Department of Health reported. The number of Miami-Dade County deaths is 14 more than it was on Thursday.
Miami-Dade County has 35% of the state’s cases and 28% of the deaths, but 13% of Florida’s population.
The coronavirus death toll in the United States stood at 75,781 on Friday morning, including at least 26,144 victims in the national hot spot of New York.
The total number of U.S. cases is more than 1.2 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center. It reports almost 3.9 million cases worldwide. More than 270,000 people have died.
The United States has 4.3% of the world’s population and 32.5% of the world’s cases.