Miami Beach Mayor Sounds Alarm on Spring Break Crowds and COVID

In Texas, citizens are preparing to take back a big chunk of normalcy, as Governor Greg Abbott declared that the statewide mask mandate will expire in the coming days, and that businesses will soon be able to reopen to full capacity.

The Lone Star State’s medical authorities came to this conclusion after taking a thorough look at the rapidly diminishing number of cases and deaths, and taking into consideration the vast number of vaccines that are currently being administered in Texas and beyond.

But not every local leader is so enthusiastic about getting back to “normal”…especially during spring break.

“We’re very concerned. You know, a lot of things are happening simultaneously. You have the variant down here, and we still are having sometimes dozens of deaths a day in our county,” Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said on CNN’s “New Day.”

“And at the same time, we’ve got incredibly cheap round-trip tickets for 40 bucks from anywhere in the Northeast down here, discounted rooms and people who have been really pent up and wanting to get out with no other place to go than here. So we are very worried that there’s going to be a convergence of people here and a real problem in the aftermath of that.”

While there is ample outdoor dining and hotels have been following safety guidelines, Gelber said that gatherings at bars “might become the kinds of super-spreaders that I think we saw a year ago.”

Gelber would go on to take a swipe at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, proclaiming that the Sunshine State leader was inhibiting his ability to fine spring breaker who decide to break COVID-19 ordinances.