Spring Break COVID-19 Mayhem Is Coming for Florida

MIAMI—Early Tuesday evening, a quartet of maskless, twentysomething beachgoers scanned the laminated menu near the outdoor seating area of Kantina, a Mexican restaurant on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach, Florida. The popular party strip was teeming with people looking to soak up booze and three-star cuisine amid a global pandemic that, at least until recently, appeared to be slowly ebbing away as vaccinations ramp up across the United States.

Still, Candelaria Mesa, the 23-year-old hostess manning the entrance to Kantina, told The Daily Beast now was the time for every food-service worker in Miami Beach to put their guard up. This week, she said, the first horde of Spring Breakers arrived in the city, posing a renewed threat that new COVID-19 cases would spike after more than a month of decline.

“I think Spring Break is going to be crazy and the cases are going to shoot up,” Mesa said through a black cloth mask. “People are out here partying and don’t take precautions seriously.”

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