Miami Beach declares state of emergency after weekend disorder

Miami Beach imposes curfew

Credit: Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/Shutterstock

The mayor of Miami Beach has declared a state of emergency as the police struggled to control the crowds who descended on the city for the annual spring break.

Dan Gelber imposed an 8 pm curfew after warning that the numbers of revellers are "more than we can handle".

The city took draconian measures fearing that the crowds, who were neither wearing masks nor observing social distancing, would trigger another coronavirus surge.

More than 32,000 Floridians have died from Covid-19, with Miami-Dade County proving one of the centres of the pandemic.

Despite health experts’ fears, Florida has eased many of the lockdown restrictions with the state governor, Ron DeSantis boasting that the area was booming — unlike Los Angeles and New York City.

The relaxation turned Miami Beach into a magnet for lockdown-weary revellers who descended on the city in huge numbers, especially with hotels and airlines slashing prices to boost demand.

Ocean Drive after 8 pm Miami Beach curfew

Credit: Marco Bello/Reuters 

On Friday night mayhem ensued after somebody fired a shot into the air and the situation worsened on Saturday as police struggled to maintain order.

Police fired pepper spray into crowds of revellers and at least a dozen people were arrested as the city attempted to enforce the mayor’s 8 pm curfew.

"Too many are coming, really, without the intention of following the rules, and the result has been a level of chaos and disorder that is just something more than we can endure," Mr Gelber told CNN.

"Other things have happened that are similarly challenging, and so it feels like a tinder, it feels like just any match could set it off."

At night, Mr Gelber added, "it feels like a rock concert, wall-to-wall people over blocks and blocks."

Events in Miami Beach have highlighted fears that the Americans may be letting down their guard as the pace of vaccinations increase.

After weeks of the number of infections falling, the decline has halted recently.

“History has shown us that when you have that plateauing, that’s usually the forerunner of another surge — we’ve actually seen that in the European Union,”  Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, told the  Today Show.

“If we can just hang on a bit longer, the more people get vaccinated, the less likelihood that there is going to be a surge.”