Miami-Dade County, in southeast Florida, re-imposed on Wednesday the mandate of wearing masks inside government facilities, a measure that will affect both employees and visitors.
“Starting today, masks will be required at all indoor county facilities, to protect us” from a possible spread of the delta variant, said Miami-Dade Mayor Levine Cava at a press conference.
Its use is also mandatory in public transportation services and airports under federal regulations, added Levine Cava, who warned about the “enormous and alarming” increase of coronavirus cases in our community and the country.
The state of Florida recorded a spike in weekly cases with 73,199 new infections in the week of July 16-22, according to data from the Florida Health Department (FHD) released last Friday.
The positivity rate in the state reached 15.1 %, averaging 10,000 new infections per day for a cumulative total of nearly 2.5 million cases since the start of the pandemic on March 1, 2020, according to the FHD, which now only reports covid-19 cases once a week.
Although the Miami-Dade councilwoman did not announce the imposition of its use on businesses or restaurants, she strongly recommended that business owners and the general public wear the mask indoors or where people are congregated, “especially those who are not vaccinated,” she said.
Levine Cava expressed concern about the covid-19 positivity rate in Miami-Dade, which, she said, stands at about 10 %, with 11,104 new cases of infection in the past week.
Seventy-five percent of the county’s eligible population (12 years and older) has already been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
