Damielys Duarte/Assistant Opinion Director
As Miami-Dade transitioned to Phase II of the pandemic on June 10, a collective sigh of relief was heard across the county, and many began to put their COVID fears behind them. But with cases of the virus spiking, it wasn’t long before South Florida closed its doors once again.
While safety should be the number one priority, closing Miami all over again is not the answer.
What many people fail to understand about this pandemic is that hiding in your house is not going to make it disappear. If anything, it will prolong our quarantine and result in the destruction of our economy—and consequently our form of living.
When numbers drop low enough again and the county decides to reopen, the cases will spike once more and it will continue to be a back and forth of opening and closing, to the point where struggling businesses that survived the first outbreak will go belly up before the end of the summer.
Many people are freaking out about the rising number of cases but when you check the death toll of the virus it’s a mere 1.9% mortality rate according to the numbers in Florida. In Miami Dade alone, there were 47,011 cases reported as of July 5. Out of that number 4,175 were hospitalized and 1,043 died.
Of course death is never an option we like to consider or promote, especially in the case of a viral pandemic. However, in the 2019-2020 flu season there were close to 62,000 deaths nationwide. Despite this staggering number for the “average cold” and a mortality rate of slightly less than 1% we never issued stay-at-home orders or mandatory face masks.
Some are even beginning to question the virus’ contagion. In Florida alone, more than 2.2 million tests were issued with only 200,000 people testing positive. This means the overall rate of contagion is an even 10% chance not including the very likely false positives that comes with molecular testing.
Much like the flu, we can only face COVID head-on.
All in all, the COVID pandemic is clearly growing to be more of a political than health related issue as the media continues to frame rising numbers as a sign of poor American leadership—rather than the obvious nature of a flu-like virus that will continue to spread regardless of our best intentions.
Unlike a natural disaster where we can hide in our houses and wait for it to pass, a virus is a living organism that will continue to multiply and infect. If we are to pay heed to the media and hide from the virus we might never come out from this the same.
It is for that same reason FIU should continue its plan for reopening our campus this fall. The implementation of temperature checks and social distancing in classrooms means students’ health will continue to be prioritized but it will also be a sign of FIU attempting to recreate our sense of normalcy.
Despite our best social distancing practices and mandatory face masks, it will only take one person to start another “outbreak”. So despite months or even years of social distancing and quarantining, we cannot expect this problem to go away. Much like the flu, we can only face COVID head-on.
Although this virus is very much real and causing havoc, we cannot allow it from stopping us from returning to our normal. Because we, as a society and culture, have survived greater tragedies and this will not be the one that changes us forever and leaves us a shadow of our past strength.
The first step in fighting this is to reopen.
Featured image by Tom Woodward on Flickr.
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