State Health officials reported 2,355 new COVID-19 cases, Wednesday, increasing Florida's total to 671,201 cases. The Florida Department of Health also reported 152 new coronavirus-related deaths, Sept. 16, bringing the statewide death toll to 13,100 fatalities.
Of the 4,991,093 COVID-19 tests that have been reported in Florida so far, the overall positivity rate stands at 13.45%. The latest single-day positivity rate is 4.45%.
Here in the Southwest Florida region including Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry, Lee, Manatee and Sarasota Counties, health officials reported 142 new cases of the virus, Wednesday for a total of 55,988 cases.
There were also 11 new coronavirus-related deaths reported in the Southwest Florida region Sept. 16 including three new deaths each in Charlotte and Manatee Counties, two new fatalities each in Lee and Sarasota Counties, and one new fatality in Collier County for a total of 1,339 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
After many establishments were closed for months amid the coronavirus pandemic, Florida’s top business regulator believes bar and craft-brewery owners will do a better job this time of self-enforcing state safety restrictions.
But Department of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary Halsey Beshears said Wednesday his agency won’t go easy on bars and breweries that violate rules such as indoor occupancy limits.
“We’re going to continue to suspend the license for those who are just blatant about, maybe overcrowding, the egregious actors out there,” Beshears said. “We’re going to continue to suspend their license, go after those people that don’t want to follow the rules.”
The state on Monday began allowing bars and breweries to again serve alcohol for on-site consumption, after a similar attempt ended in June because of a lack of compliance with safety rules. Beshears said Wednesday his agency has shifted enforcement officers’ hours to later at night and that the agency will concentrate on businesses where “we know activity is happening.”
Beshears added that a lot of the responsibility to prevent bars from losing liquor licenses rests on customers.
“For the people that don’t want to go out, don’t want to socialize, or they have a health concern, they need to stay home. They really do. They don’t need to bash all those people that want to be out and socialize,” Beshears said. “Now, the flip side of that is to the patrons that want that socialization and want to be in the bar. Be respectful of everybody else. Help that business guy out. Have some personal responsibility because we can’t shut this down again. We’ve got to find a way to exist in the new way we are operating in now, so they can make a living.”
Bars and breweries were among businesses closed in late March as the state took measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus. As cases appeared to slow in early June, establishments were allowed to reopen in most of the state with safety measures that limited occupancy to 50 percent and required customers to be seated to be served.
However, Beshears issued an order June 26 that prohibited the sale of alcohol at bars and breweries for on-site consumption because of widespread violation of the restrictions, with many incidents posted by patrons on social-media sites. Some establishments were able to continue serving drinks because they sold food.
The June 26 order came just as the state started to see an explosion of COVID-19 cases and deaths.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, in supporting Beshears’ directive, repeatedly described the effort to enforce the restrictions as playing the arcade game whack-a-mole.
The Florida Brewers Guild warned in July that being limited to a “to-go” model to sell alcohol was untenable for the majority of the more than 320 businesses in the brewery industry.
Beshears couldn’t put a number on the businesses that have closed but expects the shutdown experience will lead to more compliance.
“What’s different this time, especially after meeting with them and talking to them, they realize they have to get it right this time. They realize they can’t afford another shutdown,” Beshears said.
“I really believe the brewers and the bars are going to do a better job, and we’re going to do it,” Beshears continued. “We’re going to stay policing it like I said, but we still need help from other bar owners and brewery owners and we still need help from Florida citizens to show us where those egregious actors are.”
To help the hospitality industry, DeSantis said last week he would support legislation that would continue allowing restaurants to sell alcoholic drinks with take-out meals. He has allowed so-called “alcohol to go” during the pandemic, but state law would need to be changed to make it permanent.
“I endorse it and I think it would be a good thing,” DeSantis said during an event with restaurant operators in Fort Myers.
“It’s been effective. It’s given the restaurants a little bit of a lifeline,” DeSantis continued.
But such proposals could face opposition from groups concerned about drunken driving.
Beshears said he will back DeSantis on the to-go proposal.
“The governor has been very adamant about this, and he sees how it’s worked for those existing business owners and he thinks it’s a great idea and so, I do too,” Beshears said. “And we’re going to do all we can to help support him and try and help get that across the goal line.”
The state of Florida is reportedly ending its arrangement with 23 facilities including nursing homes that have been taking care of older patients who have COVID-19. These facilities have been called isolation centers and the concept has been controversial.
At the height of the pandemic, hospitals needed more beds. So state officials said moving older patients recovering from COVID-19 into isolation centers would free hospital beds for the critically ill.
Instead, these older COVID-19 patients would get care at a nursing home until they could return to their permanent residences. Family members of people who live permanently in these places have told WLRN in Miami, they were afraid that the new COVID-19 patients would get their relatives infected.
According to the News Service of Florida, the state expects the facilities to discharge the remaining temporary patients by mid-October.
The Leon County Commission is trying to figure out how far it can go with its mask mandate. It comes after Florida State University fans were seen at the first football game without masks and sitting closely. Photos and videos circulating on social media also show mask-less students in apartment complexes tailgating in large numbers.
"It was absolutely an embarrassment. Across the country people were seeing this. Like, ‘oh, in Tallahassee, no rules apply.’ And even the kids are saying it…they are not mature individuals…and I’m sorry, but I was just horrified, because they do spill out beyond the gates of Doak Campbell stadium," said Commissioner Mary Ann Lindley, calling the students "thoughtless and selfish."
Leon County has more than 9,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with most of them coming in the weeks since students returned to the college and university campuses.
According to the New York Times' Coronavirus tracker board, the county is among 100 "Hotspots" for infections. Florida State University has more than 1,200 confirmed cases. Florida A&M University, which is enforcing a strict curfew on its students, has seen about 45 cases reported voluntarily.
Local law enforcement has expressed reluctance in enforcing the county’s existing mask mandate, and many of the large-scale gatherings have happened off-campus on private residences where compliance is voluntary.
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