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The latest updates on the COVID-19 outbreak in South Florida. This page ended its updates as of August 2020. Head here for additional stories on COVID-19 and the pandemic.

Coronavirus Live Updates: New Rules For Keys Businesses, State Addresses Unemployment Website Woes

MIAMI HERALD
A limited supply of tests for coronavirus in Florida and across the United States remains a primary challenge in trying to slow the spread of COVID19, the disease caused by the virus.

This post will be updated today, Monday, April 6, with the latest information on COVID-19 in South Florida.

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WLRN staff continues to add to community resource lists, including this article on where kids and families can get food while schools are closed, and this post about whether and where to get tested for the coronavirus.

The dedicated website for the Florida Department of Health, including information about symptoms and numbers of cases, can be found here. The dedicated website from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can be found here.

To receive WLRN's coronavirus updates newsletter on Wednesdays and Saturdays, sign up here.

QUICK UPDATES

Key West Issues New Rules For Businesses
Updated at 3:15 p.m.

Starting at midnight April 7, employees and customers of any business in Key West where 10 or more people congregate must wear a cover over their nose and mouth while inside.

Businesses are also now required to reduce their maximum occupancy load by 50 percent. Those with multiple extrances and exits must start monitoring those.

They also must provide alcohol-based hand sanitizers for use by customers and employees, provide disinfecting wipes at points of entrance, cash registers, and other appropriate locations. As an alternative, essential businesses shall designate staff responsible for disinfecting cars, shopping baskets, point of sales terminals and other areas as frequently as possible.

And they must make sure employees and customers remain at least six feet apart at all times.

— Nancy Klingener

State Says It's Addressing Unemployment Website Woes
Updated at 2:37 p.m.

Florida has added capacity in staff and technology for its beleaguered unemployment website, which had problems even before an unprecedented surge of applicants thrown out of work by the coronavirus.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that the state had connected a backup system, added 72 servers and recruited hundreds of state employees from other departments to help the hundreds of thousands of people filing for unemployment benefits.

Most of those people have been frustrated with the problematic state website, which couldn't handle the sudden increase in traffic.

Read more here.

First Two Florida Inmates Test Positive For Coronavirus
Updated at 7 a.m.

After weeks of assuring the public there are no cases of coronavirus among the state’s nearly 95,000 prisoners — without saying whether significant numbers of prisoners had been tested — the Florida Department of Corrections acknowledged its first positive test involving an inmate. That was quickly followed by a second.

One lawmaker, a Democrat, called the situation in the state’s prison system, which employs 24,000 staffers, a “ticking time bomb,” although another, a Republican, said the department was doing an “exceptional job.”

Michelle Glady, a prison system spokeswoman, would not say how many inmates have been tested because “testing numbers are constantly changing.”

- Martin Vassolo & Ben Conark / Miami Herald

Read more at our news partner the Miami Herald.

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