Every day during the COVID-19 crisis, the media here would describe Miami as “hard hit” or a “hot spot” or the “epicenter” of the pandemic in Florida.
That was 100% horseshit.
According to the official statistics of the State of Florida, the pandemic in Miami-Dade county peaked on April 4, 2020 with 22 deaths. (See the chart below.)
22!
That’s literally 1/26th of New York City’s peak daily death toll of 581! (Chart here.)
Now, you might be thinking: “Yes, but NYC has more people, and the per-capita numbers are probably comparable.” Wrong. Florida has done fantastic per-capita too. As of May 11, 2020, this chart on Statista.com shows New York State with 137 deaths per 100,000 and Florida with only 8!
Miami Beach got international media coverage when spring-breakers refused to stop congregating on the beach. So, there were corpses stacked to the rafters in South Beach, right? Wrong! In the South Beach zip code of 33139, I can find only one resident who died of COVID-19. And even there, that victim was 79 years-old, in Mount Sinai for another condition, and was infected with COVID-19 while in the hospital. Today, the state is reporting 219 cases in 33139, but that is the total for the pandemic, and they do not say how many of those people have recovered. Most of them probably have recovered, and the number of active cases right now might only be a couple of dozen.
If you live in a real hot-spot like New York City, and can afford to do so, you would be crazy not to buy a place down here that you can flee to when the wheels come off up north. We have clean air, with no nearby petrochemical industry to weaken your lungs. We have plenty of sunshine to keep your vitamin D topped-up, and when the hotels are on lockdown, our population-density is downright spacious.
Daily COVID-19 deaths in Miami-Dade Country for March 16 – May 11, 2020 (click chart to enlarge):
Note: data is reported with a lag, so these numbers will continue to go up a little bit. And when we come off of lockdown, there are bound to be more cases and deaths.
Note: the media has tried to browbeat the State of Florida into including tourist deaths in their statistics in an effort to paint a bleaker picture. However, the state reports only cover residents. Were there a lot of tourist deaths? I don’t know, but I have been unable to find any at all in South Beach. The media reported on two Winter Party attendees who died, but they did not live in Miami Beach. If there were more, the media would have trumpeted them, so I would bet that the tourist death toll was very low.
Here are some death-stats that I compiled for this time-period:
Average age: 75.3
Median age: 78.0
Males: 299 (61%)
Females: 191 (39%)