Owing to Spring Break crowds, Miami Beach declares a state of emergency and imposes an 8 p.m. curfew

Owing to Spring Break crowds, Miami Beach declares a state of emergency and imposes an 8 p.m. curfew

Due to increased spring break crowds in the past week, the city of Miami Beach declared a state of emergency on Saturday, fearing that such maskless, partying crowds could cause super spreader incidents, resulting in an increase in cases and a resulting surge.

Mayor Dan Gelber announced an 8 p.m. curfew for the South Beach entertainment district, as well as a halt to shore-bound traffic on the city's causeways, at a press conference earlier today.

The curfew will be in place for at least 72 hours, and probably longer, as city officials analyse the situation. As spring break reaches its height, crowds have obviously expanded and intensified over the previous week.

“At night, there is no doubt that it becomes a place that feels...out of control; you see things that you know shouldn't happen, and no community should have to endure,” Gelber said at the news conference.

City manager Raul Aquila said

City manager Raul Aquila said that “we are quite simply overwhelmed,” and compared the downtown Miami Beach crowds to a “rock concert; you couldn’t see pavement and you couldn’t see grass.”

Police have also made hundreds of arrests so far, and had to use pepper balls to break up a large crowd after a fight erupted at a restaurant on Ocean Drive Thursday night. Conditions such as these with large crowds, close contact, and shouting are ripe for becoming super spreading events, and with variants now spreading throughout the country, even more concerning.

B.1.1.7, the extremely infectious strain first detected in the UK, now accounts for up to 30% of Covid-19 infections in the US, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House Chief Medical Advisor. B.1.1.7 has now been identified in all 50 states and 94 nations, and US health officials expect that by the end of March or early April, the B.1.1.7 variant will have become the dominant strain in the US. B.1.1.7 is not only more transmissible, but much more lethal.

In reality, according to a recent study published in BMJ that looked at data from over 100,000 patients in the UK from October 1 to January 28th, B.1.1.7 was linked to a 64 percent higher risk of dying from Covid-19 than previously known strains. According to Fauci, the risk of a fourth surge from this variant strain is a serious concern.

“While there are good reasons to be positive about the pandemic, there are still far too few people who have been vaccinated to act as though it is over,” said Amesh Adalja, MD, an infectious disease physician and Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Protection. “Dangerous potential super-spreading events, such as a spring break crowd, remain dangerous potential super-spreading events that can set off chains of transmission that fall on unvaccinated vulnerable people,” says the CDC.

As the state has now reported over 2 million Covid-19 events, data shows that particular locations in South Florida continue to show increased transmission.

Today in Florida

Today in Florida, 5,105 cases were registered, with 62 deaths, bringing the total number of deaths to 32,713. According to data from the Florida Department of Health, the positivity rate for new cases in Florida was 5.39 percent, up from 5.02 percent on Friday.

Although the number of regular new cases in Florida has fallen to the mid-5,000s from nearly 7,000 on March 1st, there is fear that spring break 2021 will see another increase.

What happens as spring breakers scatter around Florida, the United States, and even internationally will be the true test of their partying over the previous few weeks.