Coronavirus: Spring breakers on streets of Miami scorn official advice

Despite urgent measures to stop the spread of coronavirus, Spring Break is very much underway – and some young participants are determined not to let drastic public health measures curb their fun.

“If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day I’m not gonna let it stop me from partying,” one young man told CBS News on a Miami street.

“You know, I’ve been waiting, we’ve been waiting for Miami spring break for a while, about two months we’ve had this trip planned, two, three months, and we’re just out here having a good time, whatever happens happens.”

Some went further to specifically dismiss the authorities’ public health measures. Spring breaker Atlantis Walker wanted his money back: “What they’re doing is bad, we need a refund. This virus ain’t that serious. There’s more serious things out there like hunger and poverty and we need to address that.”

The outbreak is serious, however, including in Florida, whose coronavirus death toll has risen to eight with 328 confirmed cases. The mayor of Miami himself has tested positive for the virus; writing in the New York Times, he explained how seriously his city and others must take the pandemic before it’s too late.

“This is not the time to shop for nonessentials, visit friends, attend parties, or work out at the gym. While this may seem inconvenient in the short term, it can make all the difference in the long run. We must practice social isolation now to flatten the curve.”

Sure enough, Miami-Dade County is closing all public beaches and non-essential businesses; gatherings of ten or more people are prohibited in parks or beaches owned by the county.

As the US fights to stop the outbreak getting dramatically worse, isolation policies are kicking in to stop people from socialising – many of them younger people who know they are less likely than the elderly to die from the disease should they get it.

Scenes of long lines to get into bars and restaurants in New York caused serious alarm; as journalist Charlie Warzel wrote, “gathering in groups right now is selfish and puts the lives of others at risk”.

Ryan Goodman, co-editor of Just Security and a former special counsel at the Department of Defence, called the CBS spring break footage “one of [the] most morally depraved things you’ll see as the nightmare unfolds” – but blamed it on weak response from the governor of Florida and the spread of misinformation by Donald Trump and Fox News.

Nevertheless, some younger Americans are determined not to let the virus win. Bryson Taylor, another spring breaker on the streets of Miami, took a defiantly philosophical line, reminiscent of the Zen Buddhist commitment to the present over the future or past.

“We’re just trying to roll with it,” he told the interviewer. “We’re just living for the moment. We’re just gonna do what happens, when it happens. When stuff closes, we’re gonna do it when it closes. But beside that, we’re just gonna have the best trip we can.”