Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Florida reopening raises fears of new virus wave
Governor easing restaurant restrictions
MIAMI — As the summer coronavirus spike in Sun Belt states subsides, Florida has gone the furthest in lifting restrictions, especially on restaurants where the burden of ensuring safety has shifted to business owners and residents — raising concerns of a resurgence.
In his drive to return the state to normalcy, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis lifted limits on indoor seating at restaurants, saying they can operate at 100% in cities and counties with no restrictions and that local governments with some restrictions can’t limit indoor seating by more than 50%.
In some of Florida’s touristy neighborhoods, patrons have since been flocking to bars and restaurants, filling terraces and defying mask orders, while drawing mixed reactions from business owners and other customers.
“We’re generally concerned that we’re going to find ourselves on the other side of an inverted curve and erasing all the progress we’ve made,” said Albert Garcia, chairman of the Wynwood Business improvement district, which represents 50 blocks of restaurants and bars in Miami’s arts district.
Other Sun Belt states that have been covid-19 hot spots over the summer haven’t gone as far. In Texas, bars have been closed since June under Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s orders, and restaurants
can hold up to 75% of their capacity, while face covers are required throughout the state. And in Arizona, restaurants and bars must run at half-capacity.
Though Florida’s governor generally wears a mask when arriving at public appearances and has allowed municipalities to impose mask rules, he has declined to impose a statewide mandate. And on Sept. 25, as the state entered a Phase 3 reopening, he barred municipalities from collecting fines for mask violations.
DeSantis says contact tracing has not shown restaurants to be substantial sources of spread.
“I am confident that these restaurants want to have safe environments,” he said last week. “And I’m also confident that as a consumer, if you don’t go and you don’t think they’re taking precautions, then obviously you’re going to take your business elsewhere.”
Craig O’Keefe, managing partner for Johnnie Brown’s and Lionfish in Delray Beach, said they’re now accommodating as many people as they did before the pandemic began and he’s hired eight people in the past few days.
“It was like someone turned the light on,” O’Keefe said. “It was great to see people out smiling, having fun getting to see each other. It’s been a really nice thing to get people back to work.”
Shutdowns and restrictions have battered Florida’s economy, leaving hundreds of thousands unemployed in the tourist-dependent state. The Walt Disney Co. last week announced it would lay off 28,000 workers in its theme parks division even after the Florida parks were allowed to reopen this summer.
Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious-disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine and co- director of Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, said loosening restrictions in Florida is a “mistake” that could increase community transmission at a time when teachers are being summoned back to school.
“It really sends the message either implicitly or explicitly that it’s OK. It’s back to normal now, and it’s not the case. We are still in a very serious situation,” Hotez said last week.
Miami- Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez on Friday warned people not to let their guard down, using President Donald Trump’s covid-19 diagnosis as an example that the virus is highly contagious.
Gimenez has been consulting with attorneys and staff on what rules local governments could continue to enforce without violating the new state orders. The county plans to limit many restaurants to 50% indoor capacity and continue requiring masks in public.
An 11 p.m. curfew is keeping a lid on nightlife, and the county even restricts loud music at venues so people don’t have to shout, which is believed to spread the virus more easily.
“I think there’s a lot of confusion because people thought that was it — everything is open,” Gimenez said. “We are still not out of the woods.”
Omer Horev co- owns Pura Vida, a chain of coffee shops with locations in South Beach, the Design District near downtown and at the University of Miami. He said he isn’t relaxing any rules. Store managers told him some customers have been defying the mask rule after DeSantis’ new order and he hasn’t seen any enforcement in the past week.
“We are in this gray area where you don’t know what is enforced,” he said. “I feel safe; I am OK with it, as long as restaurant operators such as us and others do the right thing in keeping the employees and guests safe.”
‘DRINKS TO GEAUX’
In New Orleans, one of the sacraments of life — buying a drink to go — is again on offer.
City officials Saturday allowed bars to begin selling takeout alcoholic beverages as part of the city’s gradual reopening from covid-19.
Go-cups had been allowed during a temporary loosening of restrictions that began in June. But in late July, officials halted all alcohol service at bars after Bourbon Street and other tourism magnets attracted crowds lubricated by to-go cocktails.
Also on Saturday, restaurants were allowed to increase their capacity to 75% from 50%, as long as tables are at least 6 feet apart.
James Garner swung open the door to the Golden Lantern in the French Quarter at 8 a.m. Saturday with a big smile on his face. Finally, the owner would be able to talk with his close-knit crew of customers. “I can’t wait to see ’em,” he said.
Garner said he was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy, finding himself short even after cashing in his retirement account.
“My God, you just don’t know. It feels like I’ve been through the wringer and back,” he said as he wrote “Drinks to Geaux” on a sidewalk chalkboard.
NYC RETREAT
In New York City, the mayor said Sunday that he has asked the state for permission to close schools and reinstate restrictions on nonessential businesses in nine neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens starting Wednesday because of a resurgence of the coronavirus.
The action would mark a disheartening retreat for a city that enjoyed a summer with less spread of the virus than most other parts of the country, and had only recently celebrated the return of students citywide to in-person learning in classrooms.
“You don’t do this lightly — you do this when the facts demand it,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said, adding that he has sounded a number of warnings recently. “We had warned people of more restrictive measures, and now we’re imposing them.”
About 100 public schools and 200 private schools would have to close. Indoor dining, which just resumed a few days ago, would be suspended. Outdoor restaurant dining would shut down in the affected neighborhoods as well, and gyms would close. Houses of worship would be allowed to remain open with restrictions in place.
The Democratic mayor said he was taking the action in an attempt to stop the virus from spreading deeper into the city and becoming a second wave.
“We’ve learned over and over from this disease that it is important to act aggressively, and when the data tells us it’s time for even the toughest and most rigorous actions, we follow the data, we follow the science,” de Blasio said.
Over the past two weeks, the number of new cases of the virus has been rising in pockets of the city, predominantly in neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens that are home to the city’s large Orthodox Jewish population.
De Blasio made the announcement shortly after Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who must approve the mayor’s plan, complained that local governments with hot spots had “not done an effective job” of enforcing social distancing rules.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew praised the move. “This is the right decision, one that helps protect our schools, our neighborhoods, and ultimately our city,” he said Sunday.
U.K.: WINTER IS COMING
In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday defended his handling of the pandemic despite weeks of rising infections, but warned that the country faced a tough winter.
Britain has Europe’s highest coronavirus death toll at more than 42,400, and Johnson’s Conservative government is facing criticism from all sides. Opponents say tougher social restrictions are needed to suppress a second wave that is already sweeping the country. But many in Johnson’s right-of-center party argue that restrictions must be eased to save the battered economy.
Johnson told the BBC the government had to strike a difficult balance and he couldn’t “take a course that could expose us to tens of thousands more deaths in very short order.”
“It is a moral imperative to save lives … but on the other hand, we have to keep our economy moving,” he said.
The U.K. is now under national restrictions on socializing, including a 10 p.m. curfew for bars and restaurants, and groups limited to six, with areas of high infection facing stricter local measures, which Johnson and other ministers have sometimes struggled to explain clearly. Critics say months of mixed messages and changes of advice on everything from wearing masks to whether or not to work from home have left people confused and exhausted.
A national test-and-trace program to find people who have been exposed to the virus has also had persistent problems, and is failing to reach more than a quarter of infected people’s contacts.
Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labor Party, accused the government of “serial incompetence.”
“The prime minister is governing in hindsight,” Starmer told the Observer newspaper. “So he charges forward, not recognizing the problem, has a car crash, looks in the rear mirror and says: ‘What’s all that about?’”
Johnson acknowledged that many people feel “fatigue” after months of restrictions and expressed hope that progress on vaccines and testing would “change the scientific equation” in the next few months, allowing a return to normalcy.
But he warned “it’s going to continue to be bumpy through to Christmas. It may even be bumpy beyond.”
DOWNSIZED PILGRIMAGE
In Saudi Arabia, a limited number of people Sunday donned the white terrycloth garment symbolic of the Muslim pilgrimage and circled Islam’s holiest site in Mecca after the country lifted coronavirus restrictions.
The kingdom had taken the rare step in early March of suspending the Umrah pilgrimage, which can be taken at any time of the year (in contrast to the calendar-tied Hajj pilgrimage) and draws millions from across the world, as the coronavirus morphed into a global pandemic.
But the Saudi government Sunday started allowing a maximum of 6,000 pilgrims a day to enter the sprawling Grand Mosque. Only Saudi citizens and residents will be permitted to visit during this first phase of reopening, and each person has up to three hours to complete the pilgrimage.
The Grand Mosque, which is being sterilized and cleaned multiple times a day, houses the cube-shaped Kaaba that observant Muslims pray toward five times a day.
Before visitors can enter the mosque to pray or perform the Umrah, they have to apply and reserve a time and date through an online application to avoid crowding and maintain social distancing. Visitors can also select their means of transportation and meeting points via the app.
State TV on Sunday showed what appeared to be fewer than 50 people circling the Kaaba and walking several feet apart. Typically, the mosque would be packed with worshippers from around the world crowded shoulder-to-shoulder at all times of the day and night.