COVID hotel an option for shelter

As Tropical Storm Isaias headed toward Florida, Palm Beach County became the trial ground for what happens when people with COVID-19 or suspected of having the virus evacuate to emergency shelters: They are sent to hotels.

“In Palm Beach, we had people show up to a shelter that had tested positive recently or who did not pass the temperature screening, and those people were redirected to a nearby hotel,” DeSantis said at a news briefing at Broward Health on Monday. “They had a safe place to stay until the storm passed.”

Palm Beach County opened four emergency shelters over the weekend, along with a special needs shelter and an animals-only shelter as Isaias threatened to bring heavy rain and strong winds to Florida’s coastline. The county issued a voluntary evacuation order for those living in mobile or manufactured homes, or those who felt their home couldn’t withstand winds or flooding. On Saturday evening, 165 people were in the county’s shelters.

But one family who arrived and did not pass the temperature screen was sent to a nearby hotel designed as a COVID-only shelter during a storm, county spokesman John Jamason said. “They stayed

one night.”

Jared Moskowitz, director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, said sending those with the virus or suspected of having it to hotels rather than the community shelters “seemed to work well.”

“We want to make sure there weren’t any problems checking in, getting their rooms. We are going to examine all that stuff. We will do a review and the lessons learned will be implemented,” he said.

Moskowitz said anyone evacuated to a hotel during a storm will not have to pay the cost. “The hotel stay is completely free. The state is paying for that and is reimbursed by FEMA.”

With a potentially busy hurricane season ahead, Moskowitz said he will study whether people who were supposed to evacuate did. He also will look at whether the thermometers and COVID protection kits with masks, gloves and sanitizer provided by the state were used in the shelters.

“We did get a good trial run for what will likely be a busy hurricane season,” DeSantis said. “We had the opportunity to beta test the new sheltering strategy, which we had to evolve in light of the coronavirus.”

Broward County had been prepared to open 34 emergency shelters but did not have the need. Florida holds contracts with hotels throughout the state to use for isolation during the pandemic as needed.