Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez Stands By Decision To Close Beach For July 4th Holiday
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - South Florida beaches will be closed over the July 4th holiday in an effort to stem the spread of coronavirus.
Over the weekend, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez ordered all beaches in the county closed. He said he was worried that an overwhelming number of beachgoers would show up.
"I was afraid of a surge of people coming in for the Fourth of July weekend, and our inability, possible inability, to control that. That's why we closed the beaches for the Fourth of July," he said.
Gimenez said the restrictions the county has put in place are working and attributes the rise in cases to young people not following the rules.
"We know what the problem is. The problem is young people, people 18-34, 35 to 44 are basically disregarding the rules that we put in place. We have, you have to have a mask any time you're indoors in a public place. You have to have masks outdoors when you're closer than six feet and you can't maintain social distancing. We feel that young people are doing what young people do, and getting together, maybe not in public places, maybe they're getting together in homes, individual homes.
The mayor said last week when he drove around on Miami Beach he saw a lot of people walking in the streets who were not wearing their masks and or social distancing.
"They were not obviously part of the same household. Our problem is, yeah, we're seeing a rise in the infection rate of young people, they will then in turn eventually bring it in and to their parents and grandparents and then we're really going to have a problem," he said.
