Coronavirus could see South Florida tourism taking a hit

Miami International Airport using permanent quarantine station

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – With clusters of coronavirus continuing to appear around the world, Florida’s top economist now warn that fears about the virus, could help fuel a recession. “This is certainly a concern but it’s not anything to panic about at this point," the Florida Chamber of Commerce’s chief economist, Jerry Parrish, said.

With international visitors spending much needed tax dollars in South Florida stores, hotels and restaurants, officials warn the Sunshine State's tourism industry could potentially take a big hit.

“A pandemic effect could be disastrous to the hospitality industry. We rely so much on tourism,” said Peter Ricci, an associate professor in Hospitality Management at Florida Atlantic University.

Coronavirus is also affecting schools and universities in South Florida. Florida International University suspended it’s study abroad program in countries where the virus is widespread.

The University of Miami is taking similar steps, cancelling its study-abroad programs in China.

At Miami International Airport, Center for Disease Control officials have been using a permanent quarantine station in one of the terminal to help screen passengers who are showing signs of coronavirus.

Miami Dade Schools screening new international students

Alberto M. Carvalho, superintendent for Miami Dade Public Schools, said while the district is still welcoming international students, they will now be screened at two locations staffed with a nurse, and will be asked important assessment questions.

On Wednesday, Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho held a press conference to talk about how the district is preparing for any possible local impacts from coronavirus, although he stressed that the conference was not because of any imminent danger.

(Watch press conference below)

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Globe battles virus as cases multiply outside China

The Associated Press

Crews scrubbed everything from money to buses, military bases were on high alert and quarantines were enforced Wednesday from a beachfront resort in the Atlantic to a remote island in the Pacific, as the world worked to halt the fast-spreading virus that for the first time counted more new cases outside China than inside the country where the epidemic originated.

Worries over the ever-expanding economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis multiplied, with factories idled, trade routes frozen and tourism crippled, while a growing list of countries braced for the illness to breach their borders. Even the Olympics, five months away, wasn’t far enough off to keep people from wondering if it would go on as planned.

“We don’t expect a miracle in the short term,” said Kianoush Jahanpour of the health ministry in Iran, where an official tally of infections of 139 was doubted by some who thought the problem was far bigger.

Workers disinfect subway trains against coronavirus in Tehran, Iran, in the early morning of Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. Iran's government said Tuesday that more than a dozen people had died nationwide from the new coronavirus, rejecting claims of a much higher death toll of 50 by a lawmaker from the city of Qom that has been at the epicenter of the virus in the country. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, reported that the number of new cases reported outside China on Tuesday exceeded the number of new cases in China for the first time.

“The sudden increases of cases in Italy, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Korea are deeply concerning,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.

About 81,000 people around the globe have been sickened by the coronavirus that kept finding new targets.

A worker wearing a face mask sprays disinfectant as a precaution against the new coronavirus at Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. The number of new virus infections in South Korea jumped again Wednesday and the U.S. military reported its first case among its soldiers based in the Asian country, with his case and many others connected to a southeastern city with an illness cluster. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP) (Yonhap)

With Brazil confirming the arrival of Latin America’s first case, the virus had a toehold on every continent but Antarctica.

In Europe, where Germany, France and Spain were among the places with a growing caseload, an expanding cluster of more than 200 cases in northern Italy was eyed as a source for transmissions. In the Middle East, where cases increased in Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq, blame was directed toward Iran. In Asia, where the crisis originated late last year in China, threats continued to emerge around the region, with South Korea battling a mass outbreak centered in the 2.5 million-person city of Daegu.

The illness had now spread to 37 counties, said world health officials, who simultaneously cautioned against the risks of unnecessary fears or stigma.

“We are in a fight that can be won if we do the right things,” WHO director-general Ghebreyesus said.

A worker disinfects a public bus against coronavirus in Tehran, Iran, in early morning of Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. Iran's government said Tuesday that more than a dozen people had died nationwide from the new coronavirus, rejecting claims of a much higher death toll of 50 by a lawmaker from the city of Qom that has been at the epicenter of the virus in the country. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Though the virus pushed into countries both rich and poor, its arrival in places with little ability to detect, respond and contain it brought concern it could run rampant there and spread easily elsewhere.

“We’re going to be trying to slow down the spread so that our hospitals are not overwhelmed in one big gulp, one big hit,” said Ian Mackay, who studies viruses at the University of Queensland in Australia.

A worker disinfects a public bus against coronavirus in Tehran, Iran, in early morning of Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. Iran's government said Tuesday that more than a dozen people had died nationwide from the new coronavirus, rejecting claims of a much higher death toll of 50 by a lawmaker from the city of Qom that has been at the epicenter of the virus in the country. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

In South Korea, workers sanitized public buses, while in China, banks disinfected banknotes using ultraviolet rays. In Germany, authorities stressed “sneezing etiquette,” while in the United States, doctors announced a clinical trial of a possible coronavirus treatment.

Around the world, as Christians marked the start of the holy season of Lent with Ash Wednesday, worshipers found churches closed and rituals changed by virus fears. Even in St. Peter’s Square, many of those gathered for Pope Francis’ weekly audience wore face masks and clergy appeared to refrain from embracing the pontiff or kissing his ring.

Catholic devotees have ash sprinkled on their heads during Ash Wednesday rites Feb. 26, 2020 in Paranaque, metropolitan Manila, Philippines. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines has recommended sprinkling ash on the head of devotees instead of using it to mark foreheads with a cross to avoid physical contact and fight the spread of the new coronavirus in the Lenten period in places of worship. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila) (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Services in Singapore were broadcast online to keep people from crowded sanctuaries where germs could spread, bishops in South Korea shuttered churches for what they said was the first time in the Catholic Church’s 236-year history there, and in Malaysia and the Philippines, ashes were sprinkled on the heads of those marking the start of Lent instead of using a damp thumb to trace a cross of ashes.

A worker disinfects subway trains against coronavirus in Tehran, Iran, in the early morning of Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. Iran's government said Tuesday that more than a dozen people had died nationwide from the new coronavirus, rejecting claims of a much higher death toll of 50 by a lawmaker from the city of Qom that has been at the epicenter of the virus in the country. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

“We would like to be cautious so that the coronavirus will not spread,” said the Rev. Victorino Cueto, rector of the National Shrine of our Mother of Perpetual Help in Manila in the Philippines.

Major gatherings were eyed warily, with organizers scrambling to respond in the face of the epidemic. Looming largest of all are the Olympic games, whose opening ceremonies are scheduled for July 24 in Tokyo. A member of the International Olympic Committee, Richard Pound, sounded alarms a day earlier, saying the virus could force a cancellation of the games. The Japanese government, in turn, gave mixed signals, insisting they would go forward yet urging that sports events now be curtailed.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for major sports and cultural events in the coming two weeks to be canceled or postponed to stem further infections. Meanwhile, the top government spokesman said Olympics preparations would proceed and the games would go on as planned.

Among the other crowded places that had officials worried: Military bases.

A medic moves a patient in a ward dedicated for people infected with the coronavirus, at Forqani Hospital, in Qom, 78 miles (125 kilometers) south of the capital Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. Iran's president said Tehran has no immediate plans to quarantine cities over the new coronavirus rapidly spreading across the country, even as the Islamic Republic suffers the highest death toll outside of China with 19 killed amid 139 cases confirmed on Wednesday. (Mohammad Mohsenzadeh/Mizan News Agency via AP)

The South Korean military announced additional infections among its troops, with 20 cases on its bases and some 9,570 people in isolation. The U.S. military, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, confirmed the first infection of an American soldier, a 23-year-old man based at Camp Carroll near Daegu, a day after Americans said a military spouse also had contracted the illness. Bowling alleys, movie theaters and a golf course on four American bases in the country were closed.

“This is a setback, it’s true, there’s no getting around that. But it’s not the end of the war,” Col. Edward Ballanco, commander of the U.S. Army Garrison Daegu told troops in a video message. “We are very well equipped to fight this thing off.”

Italy recorded 52 new infections on Wednesday and Greece became the newest country to see a case of the virus. South Korea announced 284 new cases, largely in Daegu, bringing its total to 1,261. China, still the epicenter of the crisis even as new outposts caught the world’s attention, reported 406 new cases and 52 more deaths. The country has a total of 78,604 cases of the virus and 2,715 fatalities.

Italian Army soldiers check transit to and from the cordoned areas in Turano Lodigiano, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. The viral outbreak that began in China and has infected more than 80,000 people globally, so far caused 374 cases and 12 deaths in Italy. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni) (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

China said Wednesday that those sickened by the virus included 555 prisoners who officials said likely became infected by guards using the same bus station as a nearby pulmonary hospital. In a twist, China is now heavily regulating arrivals from abroad, with authorities placing South Koreans under monitoring, state broadcaster CCTV reported, after five people on a flight showed signs of fever.

Indonesia said it evacuated 188 crew members from the World Dream cruise ship and planned to take them to remote Sebaru Island. The workers were released from quarantine in Hong Kong after finding no infections, but authorities mandated an additional observation period.

In this photo released Indonesian Military, Indonesian crew members from World Dream cruise ship board navy hospital ship KRI Dr. Soeharso on the waters of Durian Bay, Indonesia, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. Indonesia evacuates 188 of its citizens from the cruise ship Wednesday after they were released from quarantine in Hong Kong following tests that found no infections of COVID-19. The workers will be brought to an uninhabited off Jakarta, for a 14-day quarantine as authorities mandated an additional observation period. (Indonesian Military via AP)

And on the opposite side of the world, the MSC Meraviglia was denied permission to land in Grand Cayman, where it was due to arrive Wednesday, following a decision by Jamaica to refuse it entry. The cruise line expressed frustration with the moves, which came after it reported one crew member from the Philippines was sick with common seasonal flu.

It brought reminders of the MS Westerdam, which was repeatedly denied entry to Asian ports before Cambodia welcomed its passengers.

MSC Cruises said the Meraviglia was sailing onward to Mexico.


About the Authors
Trent Kelly headshot

Trent Kelly is an award-winning multimedia journalist who joined the Local 10 News team in June 2018. Trent is no stranger to Florida. Born in Tampa, he attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he graduated with honors from the UF College of Journalism and Communications.

Kristi Krueger headshot

Kristi Krueger has built a solid reputation as an award-winning medical reporter and effervescent anchor. She joined Local 10 in August 1993. After many years co-anchoring the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m., Kristi now co-anchors the noon newscasts, giving her more time in the evening with her family.

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