As Florida moves to reopen, a rural county remains wary

For nearly 30 years, the festival has ushered in the warm season and showcased a major industry in this rural county 40 miles south of the Georgia state line.

This year, it's canceled because of the novel coronavirus. At the same time that Gov. Ron DeSantis' phased reopening of most of the state began earlier this month, organizers of the festival decided they didn't want to risk it.

"As much as we would like to have the festival, we don't want to be the hotbed and really spark something here," said Jordan Weldon, president of the Wellborn Community Association, which sponsors the festival.

Even though DeSantis has said that the "worst-case-scenario thinking has not proven to be true" with the coronavirus in Florida and much of the state is primed to reopen, many residents in this county that's bordered by the Suwannee River are still reluctant to embrace a return to normal. 

Cases of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, have been increasing statewide and in Suwannee County. More than 43,000 Floridians have tested positive for the coronavirus, and more than 1,800 have died as of Thursday. 

In Suwannee County, 151 people have tested positive, and 18 have died. All of the deaths have occurred inside a local nursing home, the Suwannee Health and Rehabilitation Center. 

From the beginning of the pandemic, DeSantis treated parts of the state differently, insisting for many weeks that rural counties like Suwannee didn't need to follow the same stay-at-home rules that places such as Miami and Fort Lauderdale did. 

He says that's still true.

"We have a big, diverse state, and this is a radically different outbreak in different parts of the state," DeSantis said at a news conference this week. On Thursday, he said the places with the most cases - Miami-Dade and Broward counties - can join the rest of the state in lifting some coronavirus restrictions next week, such as allowing restaurants to open, but at reduced capacity.

But the tension between relief and worry at reopening is especially acute in Suwannee County, where about 45,000 people live. The 18 nursing home deaths are among the highest in the state for a long-term-care facility, and local officials are concerned that the number of confirmed cases of the virus has not slowed. 

"It's still growing," Live Oak City Councilman Don Allen said of the coronavirus. "It hasn't peaked yet."

Last week, a group of Democratic U.S. representatives from Florida called on DeSantis to halt the reopening because the state has not yet met the testing capacity that the White House recommends for reopening a state.

"A rushed reopening may very well serve only to increase the human loss caused by an already historic public health crisis, as states moving forward with reopening are seeing increases in new covid-19 cases," the letter to DeSantis said.

The letter was signed by 10 members of the state's congressional delegation - most of them from the three South Florida counties that DeSantis excluded from his original reopening order. They say "insufficient testing" means the extent of the virus's spread is still unknown.

DeSantis' office did not respond to a request for comment. 

Despite pressure, DeSantis did not issue a stay-at-home order as the virus was spreading nationwide in March, instead ordering people arriving from the New York area to self-quarantine for 14 days after arriving in Florida. Among the reasons DeSantis gave for not asking people to stay in their homes in March was that he did not want to punish rural areas because the virus was taking hold in metropolitan areas.

Suwannee County reported its first case of the virus March 27, and other rural counties soon followed. DeSantis issued the statewide order on April 3.

Allen said the deaths and infections at the Suwannee Health and Rehabilitation Center are on the minds of his constituents. He said it has been difficult to obtain accurate information from the nursing home, and the town's rumor mill has been working overtime. 

The Suwannee Health and Rehabilitation Center did not return calls for comment.

Florida did not name nursing homes where there have been coronavirus outbreaks until recently, after the Miami Herald and other news organizations sued for the information.

DeSantis is now making long-term-care facilities a focus of his efforts to fight the coronavirus, calling them "a very important vector to worry about in the transmission of this disease."

But the lack of information when people started dying of covid-19 two months ago in Suwannee County has residents wary.

"Nobody was paying attention to us," Allen said. "All they were doing was counting cases, counting deaths. They weren't telling us what was happening or where or what they were doing to help. People were scared."

Many people remain afraid. 

"It's a small town, and it seems like everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who got it," said Sam Roberson, a farmer and former county commissioner. "That can make for a lot of worried folks."

Roberson, 79, was wearing a mask as he stopped by the Live Oak post office recently. As other people walked by - some wearing masks, some not - Roberson said the state needs to reopen for economic reasons, and he's glad to see it happening. He acknowledges it's not an easy line to walk.

"You have people who don't want to wear a mask, or who don't want to keep their distance," Roberson said. "But you've got to do what you think is right for yourself."

Terri Strayer and her husband, John, have been running John's Lawn Equipment in Live Oak since 1993. It was deemed an essential business, so they stayed open during the statewide shutdown. Business has been steady, she said.

"It's been good. People are wanting to get out and do stuff in their yards," Strayer said. "But it's a Catch-22 both ways. Some people are hurting because of not being able to work, but they're home so they want to clean up and do the yard work. The grass is still growing."

Strayer said that businesses should be allowed to reopen but that more testing and more transparency are what it will take to give people confidence to leave home and shop or eat out.

"You've got to get tests, and people who test positive need to stay home and quarantine," she said. "And they've got to get the information out to the public. We get a lot of news from word of mouth, and Facebook, and naturally the rumor mill starts going. We need help in weeding out the facts from the rumors."

Suwannee County Administrator Randy Harris said information has been available "every day" for the public, but he understands the anxiety many people feel.

"As soon as we heard of the first case in the nursing home, we were very concerned and understood the potential for catastrophic results, which is largely what we experienced," Harris said. "But the information circulates quickly."

While the state is looking toward Phase 2 of DeSantis' three-phase reopening - allowing up to 50 people to congregate, rather than the current limit of 10, and opening bars and nightclubs to 50 percent capacity, among other restrictions - some in Live Oak worry things might be opening too quickly.

"It might be too soon, we just don't know," said Lorraine Barnhart as she shopped at the Hoover Family Produce Market's outdoor stand.

Barnhart wasn't wearing a mask - the first time she'd appeared in public without one for weeks.

"It's in my car, and I was going to put it on, but I felt like, this will be a quick trip, and it'll be nice to just breathe in the fresh air," Barnhart said as she looked over the green beans and blueberries. "It's all still a little scary."