St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman And Other Florida Mayors Urge Governor To Change COVID Approach

Florida COVID-19 have been trending upwards over the past week, averaging more than 6,500 newly reported cases each day.

Five mayors from around the state, including St. Pete Mayor Rick Krisemean, are seeking consistency in statewide regulations. They made four recomendations:

1. Roll-out a statewide mask mandate

2. Permit cities and counties the ability to enhance local measures, including penalizing non-mask wearers

3. Have state testing facilities running at full capacity again

4. Increase contact tracing and implement use of a Google COVID app

St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman and the other mayors are in agreement with the governor about keeping the state open. "“We understand the economic impact that potentially some of these orders could have but we’re also trying to look at this from a long term basis as opposed to short term. If we don’t deal with this now, the economic catastrophe that we are facing will be worse if we have to go to a complete shut down.”

Kriseman said yesterday that if cases continue to rise in St. Pete, the city may be forced to put strict rules in place. “The last thing we want to do here in St. Petersburg is to shut things down again. We’re seeing it happen around the county. We’re going to do everything we can to prevent that including enhanced rules if we need to."

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Remember when the water along Bayshore Boulevard disappeared?