Miami-Dade officials may lift the county's curfew on April 5th depending on how coronavirus trends continue, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said in a press release Friday.
Levine Cava sent a memo to the Board of County Commissioners with results from a 30-day "medical data" review, explaining her decision that the midnight to 6 a.m. curfew may be removed "if current trends continue and the 14-day average is at or below 5.5% at that time."
"We are now in the final chapter of our fight against the coronavirus as we aggressively expand vaccination efforts," the mayor said in the press release.
"We can’t afford to let our guard down when we are so close to the finish line. I am confident that by continuing to work together with our residents and businesses, we can drive down our positivity rate below the 5.5% mark needed to minimize community spread of COVID-19."
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The memo Levine Cava sent to county commissioners also states that the curfew could be reinstated if the 14-day positivity rate rises above 6%.
VIRUS LATEST
Following President Biden's announcement that the U.S. would have enough vaccine supply for all Americans by the end of May, local officials have begun easing back on coronavirus restrictions despite experts' pleas.
Some of the nation's top health officials have repeatedly warned in recent weeks that the emergence of the new variants, especially the strain first identified in the U.K., known as B.1.1.7, stand to reverse the nation's success tamping down its outbreak.
Despite this, Texas, Mississippi and Connecticut moved this week to allow businesses to resume operations at full capacity in their states. Both Texas and Mississippi also decided to lift their statewide mask mandates, though the states' governors urged residents should continue covering their face.
The U.S. is reporting a daily average of roughly 62,950 new cases over the last week, a significant drop compared with the peak of nearly 250,000 daily cases the U.S. reported in January, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
