Mayor gimenez this is a balancing act. Starting to shut down again could cause damage, irreparable harm to their livelihoods. There will not be a job for them to have. Karen good afternoon. I am a Political Columnist at the washington post. Please pardon the technical difficulties in my hand. I want to welcome you for our conversation with miamidade mayor, carlos gimenez. Thank you so much for giving us some of your time today, which i know is very, very precious. By asking youart how things look right now. Florida has seen, within the last week, some of the biggest increases in coronavirus infections. And miamidade area is the epicenter of florida. So, how are things looking at the moment . Mayor gimenez actually, today, the last week or so, we have actually slowed level, Positivity Rate start to level off and go down. That is pretty good news so far, so, not to say that we dont have a lot of people going to hospital or other people in the hospital, we do. 2200 people in the hospital. About 500 people in the icu, 300 people on ventilators which is much higher than it was three weeks ago. We saw a huge spike 23 weeks ago that got us from 800 people in the hospital to about 2000 pretty quickly. I think we have leveled off in terms of the spiking and hopefully were headed in the right direction. Karen when this pandemic first began in this country, it looked as though florida was going to be spared relatively speaking. The governor started to reopen the state in the middle of may. How did you feel about that decision at the time . What does it look like in retrospect . Mayor gimenez the governor started opening up other parts of the state because frankly they did not have the same level of contagion that we had here in miamidade. He allowed us to open a week or two later. So he has given us autonomy down here to do different things. Things were different in southeast florida. Broward, and palm beach is where the bulk of cases were coming from. The gating criteria was 10 Positivity Rate for over 14 days. We were down into the 7 , 8 rate. We put together a group of Different Industries along with to see how advisers we could start to open up an assay for it. We were very we could start to open up in a safe way. We had a mask order here since april. We have been giving seniors food at home since march. We closed down our Community Centers, Elderly Community centers. And our medical advisors also felt that the way we opened was complied had people with that, i dont think we would be where we are right now. A lot of it had to do with we as a community, how we all kind of felt that maybe this thing was over. Summer is coming and people were telling us summer is going to be good. You know, i just dont think that they complied with the orders. They kind of let their guard down. We saw a big uptick in the middle of june which probably started right around june and there are probably a number of factors for that. Karen how do you rate the federal response in all of this . Stateesident says that and local leaders are getting everything they ask form the federal government, everything they need. I know that the leadership really does need to be at the local level, but how has washington responded . Mayor gimenez i think washington has responded the best they could. When everybody is asking for p. P. E. At the same time the nations Disaster Response is not geared toward a full nation response. It is geared toward one area, maybe two or three at the same time, not 50. This pandemic hit all of us about the same time. Then we had the shortage of p. P. E. And other equipment. We got our fair share we never run out of a pe, and that was good. A lot of people were thinking over going to run out, so that was good. I have no complaints about the federal response. You have to note that when something that ms. Hits, there is higher transition and this thing hit new york harder. So a lot of focus had to go to new york state and new york city, the tristate area because that is where the virus was and that was where the deaths were occurring, and you had to prioritize as a nation. I have no complaints about the federal response today. Two popupned up centers that were not there yesterday. U. S. Surgeon general, general adams by the way, a terrific person he said, whatever you need let me know and i will get , it down there. Right now, we are fine. We are ok and we are getting the support that we need. Karen one of the Big Decisions that every state, and practically every set of parents in the country is going to have months over the coming is the decision of sending children back to school. The Largest Teachers Union in florida has sued the state to prevent it from reopening. Where do you stand on reopening schools, and what threshold do you believe needs to be met before it is safe to bring kids back to school . Mayor gimenez the level of contagion and every community is this the level of contagion in every communities different. We agreed we need to bring the level of contagion down in miami county, below where we are around, 17 18 , 20 , we need to bring that way below 10 , and do that, we may be able to open up some schools in some capacity. Im working with the superintendent of schools. Weve put together a Small Task Force of medical advisers to advise us as to what the proper course of action is. Its premature right now to say we are going to open. We are not going to open because we dont know where this virus will be four weeks from now when it is time to open schools. We arent going to do anything thats going to put our kids in jeopardy and we have to and a stand that even though kids may get this at a lower level, kids may even spread it out a lower level, you have to take into account these kids are going home to their parents. In this community, a lot of them you haveerations parents and grandparents living in the same household. Those parents and grandparents have a much higher risk than the kids so its not just the kids were looking at. We need to look at what are the ramifications of those children getting infected at school and coming back and infecting their parents . With the contagion level we have right now, i am not comfortable with that. I think that is consistent with the messaging that ive heard from the federal government that different areas will be treated differently, because the virus is not homogenous throughout the country. Certain areas are getting hit harder and some areas are not getting hit as hard, so it all depends on where you are. As you talk to you medical experts and talk about what does itard, look like to you, and what are some of the other really Big Decisions that state and local leaders will have to make beyond opening schools over the next few months . Here we have a curfew until 10 00 at night. Curtail social activity, because we feel that it was social activity that really cause us to jump up from a Positivity Rate that was hovering around 7 or 8 to over 20 like with the snap of a finger. I mean, it happened really quick. So we have a curfew that obviously, eventually, i would like to remove the curfew, but right now, curfew, 10 00 at night throughout miamidade county. We have what we call places of Assembly Like theaters, movie theaters. Casinos, museums, banquets, where large people gather, those are closed. Then we also closed to the interior spaces all restaurants. You can have a restaurant open as long as it is outside. Inside, you cant. It is a big industry here in miamidade, so, what am i looking at . Im looking at trying to get the level of contagion down to a certain point and then starting to reopen the county. But again, reemphasizing that its not over, that we all have to keep our masks on, maintain social distancing and wash our hands. And even in the home, we have to watch out for one another, because there could be a member of the household that is woven positive, doesnt know they are covid19 because there could be a member of the household that is covid19 positive, doesnt know they are covid19 positive, and could spread it to more vulnerable members of the household. Those are the things that im looking at. Hopefully, were, weve topped out on the Positivity Rate. Topped out on our hospitalizations and started to go down. Starts headingit north again, there may be some other measures that we have to take, but on was doing that in consultation with our medical experts. Karen you mentioned that you have been a big advocate from early on of people putting on a mask. You say that they save lives. You have even said that if President Trump comes to miami, you want him to put on a mask. Are you finding that this is now , these being accepted recommendations by people, or at this point, should there be a national masking order . Mayor gimenez again, in the state of florida, there are Different Levels of contagion in the state of florida, and i am sure across the nation, there are Different Levels of contagion, so i think those decisions are best left to the local leadership. Miamidadeyor of county, i represent 2. 8 Million People. Im also a former firefighter and a paramedic so i know a little bit about this. Now, when this first started, you know, everybody, the cdc, the best medical advice was do not wear masks and thats caused confusion. I think the reason they said not to wear a mask, unlike any other virus that i have seen in a long time, or ever actually, there is a High Percentage of people here that get the virus that display zero symptoms. They dont feel anything. They feel fine. Upwards of 50 , and so, you know, on a normal kind of disease, you get a runny nose, you start coughing, and then youre contagious. But covid19 is it like that. So the cdc had to change its recommendations, and now we have to assume that everybody is contagious, and that im contagious, youre contagious. We have covid19 and we dont know about it, and so we may be spreading it. So the use of masks is very important. Weve had a mask order here since march. Interior spaces, we had it for outdoors also. If you could not maintain social distance. Three or four weeks ago we changed it to outdoors masks all the time, indoors, outdoors,. We recently just passed some legislation to also do some civil citations concerning not only the use of masks, but also all the other rules and regulations we have put in place , to make it easier for our Code Enforcement officers to tak ticket people. We have already ticketed over a hundred people and Something Like 40 different businesses and we closed some businesses for not adhering to the rules. So, do i find it easier . Yeah, i find it easier because we are in on it. We are really accentuating it, and because some people did not follow our rules, that is why we had to close some businesses. And when we close businesses were hurting our neighbors. These are our neighbors. These are their jobs that were hurting, and so its a sense of community. My message is that i wear a mask to respect you because i dont know if i am contagious or not, you should wear a mask to respect me, and we should always wear a mask to respect the community because we are a member of the community. , to wear auch to ask mask, keep your distance, wash your hands. Can beat aat we virus. Karen we have a question from our audience, in fact, from florida. He had mentioned earlier that miami had had higher infection than other parts of the state. Why is miami the epicenter of covid in florida . Mayor gimenez there is a number of things. A lot ofe, we had young people. It is a little different than maybe other parts of a United States 60 of the people who live here were not born in the United States. I wasnt born here. I was born somewhere else. A much tend to have higher percentage of our families that are here. Ur families are not spread out my children, my grandchildren and my cousins are all here in familynd we are very Oriented Community here, and we like to get together. I think the reason why we are an international city, we have a lot of people, initially, we had a lot of people from new york that were here and we had to quarantine the folks from new york. Now they are quarantining people from florida up in new york, that is the way things change. An international gateway. We also had a lot of travelers from new york and we have this community and family that is maybe a little different than the rest of the country. Thats why you would see that we little bit higher contagion here in miamidade county. Were called the gateway to the americas for good reason. Our airport has about 120,000 people, or had 120,000 people day traveling through it, and so you probably, you know, had that. We were also the host of the super bowl in february, and i am sure that brought a lot of the covid19 infection into miamidade too, as well. ,so there is a number of factors why we are the epicenter. We are also by far the densest largest county and by far the densest county in the state of florida. Karen from jim turner, another floridian, you had mentioned earlier your program that you started early, delivering meals to the elderly. Miamidade does have a High Percentage of another the population. What else are you doing to protect you older citizens who may have comorbidities with covid19 . Mayor gimenez i know that the state is doing a lot with the Nursing Homes, and als, that is under the purview of the state. They have put a cocoon around the Nursing Homes. We saw what happened in new york , transferring patients from hospitals into Nursing Homes. We dont do that, we do the opposite. We take them from Nursing Homes and put them in hospitals. Ithink my first order after declared an emergency was to oppose all the Community Centers. Here in miamidade, we have a number of Community Centers that are for the elderly. That is where they socialize and they also get a meal. We close all of them down and we started delivering meals to about 75,000 elderly residents of miamidade on a daily basis. So we have already delivered ,illions of meals to the homes to reveal the league so that they dont have to go out, because again, we also say we are safer at home. So our message to the elderly is, you are safer at home. I know it is painful, the more we can keep you away from family members that dont live with you , then the safer you will be. So those are some of the things that we did here to protect our elderly. We have had 1200 deaths here in miamidade, but that is far, far less than what happened in new york and new york city. Even accounting for the difference in population. Like i said, we have 2. 8 Million People here. There is a. 2 Million People in new york, but they had there new. 2 Million People in york, but they had a much higher death rate per thousand in new york city and new york than we do here in florida and miamidade. Karen im a Political Columnist so i would be remiss if i dont ask you about this. Youre running for congress in the primary that will be held next month. If you win, you are going to face an incumbent democrat permitted you have the endorsement of President Trump, even though in 2016, you had said you planned to vote for hillary clinton. I guess this is one of the few instances the president is willing to let bygones be bygones. Do you think of yourself as a this timemp supporter around, and which parts of his are you most enthusiastic about . Mayor gimenez i am a trumps support her, and i support the president , obviously. , and i a trump supporter will support the president , obviously. The parts of his agenda that i support, his trade policy, for a time, the United States was being taken advantage of through trade policy. Im very happy to support that. He is propolice. I am propolice. Amis promilitary, i promilitary. He wants to get a new government in venezuela and hopefully a new government in cuba and in nicaragua. Im an antisocialist, anticommunist, staunchly so. My parents came here when i was years old from cuba, so we know what socialism is all about. I will be supporting his economic policies. ,ook, down here in miamidade when i became the mayor back in 2011, the Unemployment Rate here was just about 12 , just before the pandemic, the Unemployment Rate 1. 8 . Down in miamidade was down to probably the lowest in its history. That speaks for itself. So i will be supporting the president and his policies of. Conomic strength i also have a strong environmental record and i believe the only way to deal with the effects of Climate Change and Sea Level Rise is through a strong economy. I will be supporting the president. Am a centerright republican i am a fiscal conservative, and i have demonstrated that during my time as mayor of miamidade. We had the largest taxcut cut in miamidade countys history, we saved close to 2 billion in taxpayer money with that and another 2 billion in refinancing costs. We have kept the tax rate flat for the last nine years here. We havent had any tax increases but weve increased our services, and weve increased obviously our unemployment situation here, its much better, and weve grown here as a community during that time. Into one of the hottest if not the hottest, and im not talking about just temperature, im talking about statewide and investmentwise, cities in the world, and i am proud of the record ive had as mayor of miamidade. Karen is there anything the president has done or anything you would like to see him do differently with respect to the coronavirus . Mayor gimenez the