“Masks will no longer be required in Miami-Dade County buildings, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Friday. In a tweet about the reversal, Cava said it is due to ‘enormous progress we have made against the Delta variant, and in consultation with our Chief Medical Officer.’ Cava had reinstated the mask mandate in July and urged businesses to do the same due to a spike in COVID cases and deaths, which was later recognized as Florida’s third wave,” reports MiamiHerald.com.

“Another factor in the change, Cava said, was that Miami-Dade’s 7-day COVID positivity has stayed at or near 2%. She also said hospitalizations have ‘sharply declined.'”

“While positivity has stayed low, COVID hospitalizations have fluctuated between about 250 and 150 patients in the past two weeks, according to Thursday’s Miami-Dade County COVID Dashboard report. Masks will still be federally mandated on all public transportation, at Miami International Airport and at the Port of Miami. ‘We know this pandemic is not over and that we must remain vigilant,’ Cava said. She also urged residents to get vaccinated, including getting a booster if they are eligible.”

The website FloridaHealth claims that 73% of all Florida residents over the age of 12 have received the Covid19 vaccine. A page on the Covidactnow.org website claims 69.4%, and displays a map suggesting that areas like Miami-Dade and Saraasota County, which are home to large numbers of affluent Northern retirees, have higher vaccination rates than the state’s inner counties, or the Panhandle region.