Florida Spring Break: Crowds flock to South Florida as some residents worry about new outbreak of Covid-19

“I don’t see anyone taking any precautions,” Pena, 32, told CNN. “No one wears masks, no one is far from society”

Pictures from the spring break season in South Florida offer little clue that a deadly virus is still plaguing the country. Over the past week, around 54,600 new cases and more than 1,000 virus-related deaths have been reported every day in the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

“You see these photos of people crammed into bars, for example, especially indoors, no masks, basically no physical distancing,” said Cindy Prins, an epidemiologist at the University of Florida. “It just creates an unfortunately ideal situation for the transmission of Covid.”

And crowds show little sign of abating, with the Miami Beach Police Chief saying visitors have increased in recent weeks – and the trend will likely continue through April.

Pena isn’t just worried about catching the virus herself. Like local officials and experts, she fears the crowds will cause further peaks and devastation in her community and the country – something she experienced firsthand when she lost her grandmother. mother because of the virus in October.

“I am afraid of more deaths, just as I have witnessed and been among the victims of Covid,” she said. “We are losing people left and right, through recklessness and neglect.”

Residents of South Florida who CNN spoke to expressed the same concern, adding that they understood the tough decisions of government leaders as they tried to balance the desire for a healthy economy with security. of a community. But, several residents said, they want the state to welcome visitors in a safer way, with stricter enforcement for rule-breakers.

“ It doesn’t look good ”

Emily Arcia, who lives in Miami, has said for months that she only leaves home when absolutely necessary, only going for outdoor walks with her husband by the beach – and only after she’s gone. equipped with masks and gloves.

Although she has been fully vaccinated, her husband has just received his first vaccine and going out – especially now – is making the couple nervous again.

“I live right across the ocean, I live right next to a park and it’s crowded,” said Arcia, 66. “I don’t even go down on Saturdays and Sundays, because it is too crowded.”

Back when cases of Covid-19 were on the rise in the community, she could hear sirens of first responders from her balcony – at a much more frequent rate than normal. It is a marker that she is afraid of coming back.

“I have no idea what can be done to prevent what I think is a spike in cases,” she said. “Hopefully the number of vaccines that are … provided, will sort of balance that out. But, you know, that doesn’t look right.”

And it is not only the state that could see the consequences.

“It’s not just about what’s going to happen in Florida,” says emergency physician Dr. Leana Wen. “This is about what will happen when people come back to where they came from and become asymptomatic carriers who could pass the virus on to other vulnerable people.”

The return of the spring breakers, she said, could fuel surges across the country.

Local leaders fear progress will be lost

“We have spent a lot of time and energy and reduced all of our key metrics,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told CNN on Thursday. “Obviously spring break brings a flood of tourists and they may not think as conscientiously as the people who stay here and have to deal with the repercussions later.”

Gelber, in Miami Beach, is also scared. “We have too many people who just want to let go in an unacceptable way, and we have a pandemic including, I think, really central terrain for the variant,” he said recently.

And experts, including Wen, have warned that as high levels of infection persist as the country strives to vaccinate more Americans, the virus is more likely to continue mutating and more worrying variants. could appear, which could not only be more transmissible – but also pose a problem for vaccines.

“So the bigger the community, the more these variations could develop and that could really set us back,” Wen said.

CNN’s Travis Caldwell contributed to this report.