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Should Florida Cancel Spring Break?

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.56K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2021

⏱️ 18 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has become a Republican celebrity for his notably lax coronavirus policies, keeping the state mostly open during the pandemic. But in Miami Beach, tourists are using the lack of restrictions to their advantage, exposing the difficulty of managing a world that isn’t quite done with COVID-19, but desperately wants to be.  


Guest: Verónica Zaragovia, healthcare reporter at WLRN. 


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Transcript

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0:00.0

Restaurants are reopening.

0:05.0

Sidewalks are coming back to life.

0:06.8

America is shaking off a long COVID winter.

0:10.4

But in Miami Beach, you might not even know a pandemic had happened.

0:14.4

It is the start of another spring break weekend in South Florida and Miami Beach,

0:18.4

which has grabbed headlines for out-of-control crowds for weeks,

0:21.9

is bracing for another influx of tourists and possibly trouble.

0:26.6

What I've been observing the last few weeks is a lot of people crowding on Ocean Drive,

0:32.9

which is the main strip full of Art Deco hotels parallel to the beach.

0:38.3

Veronica Zaragovia is a reporter with WLRN, the public radio station for Miami and South Florida.

0:44.4

It's been really crowded, but for much of this time, it's been peaceful.

0:48.6

Just a lot of people that perhaps would raise your eyebrows because of the potential for the coronavirus to spread.

0:56.9

In fact, Veronica lives within walking distance of Ocean Drive.

1:00.3

She says locals in Miami are mostly used to the partying.

1:04.3

Everybody who lives in Miami Beach has to have a tolerance for tourism because that is the

1:09.9

lifeline of this city. And it's a

1:12.8

city that welcomes. But this year, Veronica says something changed. I've spoken to locals who

1:21.4

felt that this was just, it was too much. There have been businesses that shut down,

1:28.5

that they didn't feel that their patrons or the staff would be safe.

1:33.5

Even businesses used to serving rowdy partiers

1:36.0

were saying what was going on in South Beach was just too much for them.

1:40.1

One of them, the Clevelander, is a party venue

...

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