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A postcard from Florida: 'It's hard not to feel like we're in a free fall'

Aerial view of cars forming a queue in a field as hundreds of people arrive to be tested for COVID-19 - AFP
Aerial view of cars forming a queue in a field as hundreds of people arrive to be tested for COVID-19 - AFP

In Miami, the Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays. For almost a decade, I have hosted an impromptu party at my oceanfront condo in South Beach, spending the day with friends, drinking wine and taking dips in the ocean. One of my fondest memories is watching fireworks on the beach while splashing in the surf.

But this year was not your typical Independence Day.

As the July 4 holiday approached, the coronavirus pandemic in Florida was going from bad to worse. New daily cases in the state had skyrocketed to more than 10,000. In Miami, firework displays were cancelled and beaches closed as residents were urged to stay home and avoid crowds. While similar precautions were taken throughout South Florida and the Keys, some areas like the Panhandle went on with their celebrations as planned.

After flattening the curve to about 1,000 new cases per day through May, Florida’s numbers began trending upwards in early June. By June 12, new cases had doubled to nearly 2,000 and continued on that trajectory doubling every week. By July 13, Florida had reported a record-breaking 15,300 new cases in a single day, surpassing New York at its peak in April.

As illustrated by a Reuters analysis, if Florida were a country, it would rank fourth in the world for the most new cases in a day behind the United States, Brazil and India.

As I sit to write this postcard on Tuesday July 14, a record-breaking daily death toll of 132 lives lost was just reported, in line with the national trend as deaths climb again after lagging behind an astonishing surge of new cases for the last few weeks.

Many friends in my community are filled with frustration and despair as we watch the pandemic spiral out of control, filling hospitals and shuttering businesses with no end in sight. We’ve been failed by a lack of leadership starting with President Trump and extending to Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis who began arbitrarily reopening the state’s economy in May before new cases started trending downward.

Residents queue in cars for testing
Residents queue in cars for testing

In spite of Florida’s new surge, DeSantis refuses to impose a statewide mandate on masks, leaving the decisions to local municipalities, and Disney parks in Orlando began reopening this weekend, while the epicentre of the pandemic shifts to Florida where cases now exceed 282,000.

How did we get here?

For most Americans, life as we knew it changed on March 13 when a national emergency was declared by Trump, and states began closing non-essential businesses and imposing stay-at-home orders, followed by federal guidelines. With an economy driven by tourism, Florida is expected to lose $1.3billion in tax revenue this year as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, according to new data from Oxford Economics and the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

While DeSantis began reopening much of the state on May 1, most mayors throughout Miami-Dade County waited until June 1. Since then there has been no lack of finger-pointing to try to explain Miami’s surge in new cases, which now totals more than 67,000. Theories include the reintroduction of tourists, bars and restaurants reopening without adhering to social distancing guidelines, a reluctance by some to wear masks, private gatherings in homes and Black Lives Matter protests.

As cases surged ahead of July 4, DeSantis reversed course and ordered the state’s bars to close once more, and last week Miami-Dade County mayor Carlos Gimenez called for restaurants to close their indoor dining again, sparking outrage by some beleaguered owners. Still, these actions feel like too little too late. The economy’s fledgling reopening has atrophied and many locals dread that after four months battered by the pandemic, this may only be the beginning.

In the first wave of closures, I received news of friends’ elderly relatives hospitalised with Covid-19, and my local yoga studio and indie bookstore shuttered permanently. In the second wave, friends have tested positive for the virus without symptoms and beloved locally-owned restaurants are closing for good. For the first time in roughly 40 years, Key West’s annual Fantasy Fest celebration, a 10-day bacchanal in late October, is on hiatus and the Key West Literary Seminar in January has been postponed until 2022.

Meanwhile, the Miami Beach Convention Center has been transformed into a field hospital where people line up in cars around the block every morning waiting hours for free Covid-19 drive-up testing. The site is more famously known for the splashy annual Art Basel fair, a boon to the local economy that usually draws over 80,000 international visitors in December. The fair’s Hong Kong and Basel, Switzerland shows have already been canceled and, at the current trajectory, the prognosis for Miami is not looking good.

In Florida, like much of the country, it’s hard not to feel like we’re in a free fall.