The New York Times
‘I’d rather be in Florida’: focusing on the bright side of the sunny state
MIAMI – Apart from New York, no major city in the United States has struggled with more cases of coronavirus in recent weeks than Miami. But you would hardly know that if you lived here. Spring break crowds the beaches. Cars crowd the highways. Weekend restaurant reservations have almost become necessary again. Banners in Miami Beach say “Vacation with responsibility”, the subtext being, of course, going on vacation. Subscribe to the New York Times newsletter The Morning. Much of life seems normal, and not just because of the return of Florida’s winter tourism season, which was interrupted last year a few weeks after the pandemic began. Florida reopened months before much of the rest of the country, which only in the last few days has begun to emerge for most of a year under a blockade. Live music returned to New Orleans bars this weekend. Crowds filled restaurants in Atlanta and Kansas City, Missouri. California theaters were about to open their doors soon. Texas reopened last week across the state with spring break on South Padre Island. The playgrounds are packed in Chicago, and the Texas Rangers are getting ready to fill their stadium next month for the gods debut of the baseball season. None of this looks particularly new in Florida, which slowed down during the worst of the pandemic, but closed for a short time. On the contrary, much of the state has a feeling of an expanding city, a sense of making up for months of lost time. Real estate agents knock on the door looking to recruit sellers for the sizzling real estate market, in part because New Yorkers and Californians keep on moving. The unemployment rate is 5.1%, compared to 9.3% in California, 8.7% in New York and 6.9% in Texas. This debate about opening schools? He came and went months ago. Children have been in classrooms since fall. For better or for worse, Florida’s experience of returning to life as it used to is offers a glimpse of what many states are likely to face in the coming weeks as they move into the next phase of the pandemic – the part where it begins to end. . “If you look at South Florida now, this place is growing,” recently commented Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican. “Los Angeles is not growing. New York City is not growing. “To call what’s happening in Florida a real boom is overkill. Although the state was fully reopened at the end of September, its tourism-dependent economy continues to suffer. A $ 2.7 billion budget deficit will need an injection of federal stimulus money. Orange County, where Orlando is located, had the lowest tourist development tax levy in January since 2002. However, in a country that is emerging from the time-consuming clutches of coronavirus blocks, Florida is unmistakably hot. (And not just because of global warming.) “You can live like a human,” said DeSantis. “You are not locked. People are not unhappy. ”President Joe Biden’s new hope of bringing Americans together to celebrate with their families on the fourth of July? “We’ve been doing this for over a year in Florida,” boasted the governor. To take advantage of this feeling – even if it is just that – is to ignore the heavy toll the coronavirus has taken in Florida, which is not over yet. More than 32,000 Florida residents died, an unthinkable cost that state leaders rarely recognize. Miami-Dade County has recorded an average of more than 1,000 new cases of coronavirus a day in the past two weeks, one of the most serious outbreaks in the country. And Florida is believed to have the highest concentration of B.1.1.7, the most contagious virus variant first identified in the UK. However, Florida’s death rate is no worse than the national average and better than that of some states that have imposed more restrictions, despite its large number of retirees, young partygoers and tourists. The number of cases and hospitalizations in most of the state has decreased. The tens of thousands of people who died were, in a way, the result of a great tacit bargain – the price paid to keep as many people employed, educated and, some Floridians would say, healthy. “There is no better place to go through the pandemic than Miami,” said Patricia García, a freelance writer who moved from New York in 2017. Her 5-year-old daughter has been in school since August. She put her 1-year-old son in the nursery in July. Garcia, a 34-year-old Democrat, said he unexpectedly found himself defending DeSantis’ policies to his friends in the north. “People here have been able to work. The children were able to go to school, ”she said. “We have this reputation in Florida for being just a Florida man and crazy. But I prefer to be in Florida than in California, New York or Chicago. ”The Florida approach has infuriated many people. When the state did not close the beaches, there was national outrage, although the decision seems obvious in retrospect, given the number of people who are safer outside. Relatives of retired people from outside the state are concerned about the risks to their loved ones. But DeSantis has made it a priority to protect the state’s many older residents by banning visitors to nursing homes until October and quickly transferring people aged 65 and over (and as of Monday, 60 or older) to the front of the vaccine queue . Florida also did not allow hospitals to release coronavirus patients back to nursing homes, unlike New York, a policy that probably prevented more deaths. However, long-term care facilities still account for one-third of Florida’s virus deaths, and although deaths have been at their lowest levels since November, other signs are more worrying. The number of COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit at Jackson Health, the state’s largest public hospital system, increased over a week this month by 10% before starting to decline, said Dr. Peter G. Paige, clinical director . “Obviously, we have to keep our guard up,” he said. Florida never imposed a statewide masking mandate, and the governor in September banned local governments from enforcing their own local orders. This week, DeSantis eliminated all outstanding fines related to virus restrictions, declaring that most of the restrictions “were not effective”. Florida occupies the bottom third of the states when it comes to vaccines. The launch was confusing and uneven: after weeks of unsuccessfully trying to get a chance, Joan Brewer, 82, who lives in Palm Beach County, thought she had gotten an appointment at a nearby Publix supermarket – only to find out after registering that the slot was in Gulf Breeze, in the Florida Panhandle. “It’s a 9-1 / 2 hour trip, with no stops!” she said. (She ended up getting a dose at a mass vaccination site at the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Miami.) Try to buy a house and the experience is frustrating for a different reason: an open house will have 30 cars parked outside. Although Florida’s population growth slowed during the pandemic, documentary stamps, a property sales tax, were 15% higher in January than a year ago. Registration fees for new companies were 14% higher. Alex Pis-Dudot, a real estate agent who recently knocked on the doors of Coral Gables, a sophisticated Miami suburb, to ask if homeowners would like to sell, said he recently contacted another broker about a home that was listed less than a week ago. She told him that 20 couples had scheduled to see him – and that the seller had already received an offer from an investor for $ 20,000 above the asking price. “It’s a circus now,” said Pis-Dudot. Macchialina, a much-loved Italian restaurant in Miami Beach, closed for a few days this month after a team member tested positive for the virus. But the restaurant was able to operate during most of the pandemic thanks to Florida’s early reopening (and an outdoor patio). During the worst of the pandemic, Macchialina laid off 25 employees. Business is still low, but “we can’t complain,” said Michael Pirolo, executive chef and owner. His brother had to permanently close his restaurant in Brooklyn in April, thanks to the long block in New York. “We kind of got this bad reputation all over the world for not following the rules, because we are open,” said Jacqueline Pirolo, her sister and managing partner, about Florida. “But, most of the time, our clientele who come to dine with us follow all the rules. We were able to open and do it safely, and that is a happy medium. ”Rolando Aedo, director of operations for the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, said that about half of restaurant employees and 90% of hotel employees were laid off last year, a loss of around 150,000 jobs practically overnight. . Now, the volume of reservations in the OpenTable app is about 97% of what it was before the pandemic hit Florida, he said. Hotel occupancy has dropped by almost 20%, which is better than industry watchers expected. Hotels are busy booking rooms in Miami Beach, despite the city’s efforts to deter spring break. “Unfortunately, we are getting a lot of people wanting to let go,” said Mayor Dan Gelber. “Releasing is precisely what we don’t want.” Recently, at sunset, couples and small groups strolled Ocean Drive, getting in and out of sidewalk restaurants. Nightclubs like Mango’s Tropical Cafe, a staple of South Beach, remain closed. Garage parking costs a whopping $ 20, part of an increase in the price of spring break. A group of friends from Indiana left the beach last week in towels and swimsuits. “It was cold at home and we were trying to have fun,” said Alli Hahn, 22, a senior in college. They found roundtrip airfare for $ 96 and a cheap Airbnb rental. So far, it has been a quiet escape. Police are banning drinking on the beach. The curfew is at midnight. But it’s Florida and it’s spring. “After a whole year, I just needed to go,” said Christine Gordon, 22. A nearby sign reminded them to “wear a mask all the time”. None of them did. This article was originally published in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company