Devoun Cetoute and Charles Rabin
Miami Herald
MIAMI — Four Miami-Dade County firefighters have been self-quarantined for the past eight days after attending the EMS Today conference in Tampa earlier this month in which one of the attendees tested positive for the newest strain of coronavirus.
“None have any signs or symptoms at this point,” said Frank Rollason, director of emergency management for Miami-Dade County.
Some Miami firefighters also attended the March 2-6 conference, but none on the same day the sick man attended, said Miami Fire C.apt. Ignatius Carroll. None have been quarantined.
In additIon to the Miami-Dade firefighters, seven fire personnel from the Reedy Creek Fire and Rescue Department, which serves Walt Disney World, have been quarantined. Six of those workers attended the conference, said Eryka Washington, the communications manager for the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
The seventh Orlando-area firefighter traveled to Vietnam or South Korea, two regions ravaged by the fast-growing disease, Washington said.
The self-isolations were prompted after a 70-year-old Broward County man, who also attended the Tampa conference, tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
It’s unknown how many days the Reedy Creek personnel have been in self-isolation.
A spokesman for Disney World, which remained open Thursday, referred questions to the fire department.
COVID-19 has been ravaging countries across the world at an alarming pace for the past two months. It is also growing quickly in Florida. In the past day Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Giminez and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez have gone into self-isolation after being near a Brazilian press secretary close to the country’s president, who visited South Florida last weekend.
As of Thursday, 26 Florida residents and three non-residents in Florida have contracted the virus. Two people in Florida have died. One 56-year-old man in Miami is suffering from the illness.
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