Longboat Key's COVID-19 closures remain

Many of Longboat Key’s COVID-19 closures and restrictions will continue for at least another two weeks.

Town Manager Tom Harmer issued his latest executive order Monday, which has remained unchanged since the end of June. It keeps the following places closed: public beach parking, town facilities to the public, the public restrooms at Bayfront Park and Joan M. Durante Park, and the town’s Bayfront Park Recreation Center.

“There’s been some favorable signs over the past few weeks about the numbers decreasing, but there’s still a fair amount of new positives on the mainland in both counties,” Harmer said. “[I am] curious to see what happens with school coming back.”

Classes resumed at Manatee County schools on Aug. 17 and Sarasota County Schools are scheduled to begin class on Aug. 31.

“We don’t have a lot of school-age kids on the island. We do have some,” Harmer said. “I think the count last year was less than 80 total.

“It’s not just the students, it’s the teachers, it’s the parents, it’s the friends of the parents and so you just create a lot more potential interaction.”

Harmer also mentioned the possibility of coronavirus having a bigger impact on other parts of Manatee and Sarasota counties outside of Longboat Key.

“We have more visitors based here too so we have individuals that come and stay at hotels or the resorts, playing golf, restaurants, etc.,” Harmer said. “We’re impacted by activity on the mainland and not just what our residents do out here.”

Harmer also said he wants to see what the data reflects after the Labor Day holiday weekend. Each day, Harmer emails town commissioners local data about hospitals, infection rates and mortality rates.

“The actions of the town and our residents have been working, and at least for the next two weeks as we move between now and the holiday weekend, we’re really in a holding pattern to see what the numbers look like and get past the holiday weekend and revisit the restrictions here going forward,” Harmer said.

Harmer said he speaks with the leaders with the health departments in Manatee and Sarasota counties at least once a week.

“We looked at the hospitalization capacity in both counties as well to kind of understand if more people being hospitalized for COVID or not, and what the capacity of the hospitals are because we have very vulnerable population out here and feel a big responsibility to protect our residents as much as possible,” Harmer said.

Data from the Florida Department of Health shows Longboat Key’s 34228 ZIP code has had 27 positive COVID-19 cases in Manatee County and fewer than five in Sarasota County. For weeks, these numbers have stayed remained the same.

“There has been no change in the County Heat Map- it still reflects 0 cases in the Sarasota County portion of 34228- it has reflected 0 cases active since July 13th,” Harmer wrote in an Aug. 21 email. “Manatee does not report the data the same way but they have advised us that there are also no active cases currently in the Manatee County portion of 34228. ”

Harmer is set to re-evaluate his latest executive order on or before Sept. 8.

“Anything that we do I imagine would be incremental and careful and thoughtful,” Harmer said. “We’re trying to make good decisions. I’d rather be accused of being extra safe in circumstances like this, especially with our population.”

Before making any changes, Harmer said he would like to see infection and mortality rates decrease.

“We found out during previous holiday weekends, our infrastructure and our resources, we just could not manage the amount of people that were coming out here to our beaches,” Harmer said. “I think that wave hopefully is over, and that was because all the beaches in the area were closed and they were being opened up around the same time.”

Longboat Key’s 12 public beach access points have been closed since June 30. Beaches to the north in Manatee County and south on Lido Key and Siesta Key remain open.