AMO eyes November return of membership meetings
The AMO Executive Board is targeting November 8 for the return of regularly scheduled monthly membership meetings at union headquarters in Dania Beach.
While the COVID-19 crisis is far from over, conditions statewide in Florida have eased considerably since August, when the state reported record numbers of new infection - totals that increased nearly every day - to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Florida now reports a weekly average of 7,074 new coronavirus cases - linked commonly to the COVID-19 delta variant - as of September 26, compared to a seven-day average caseload that reached 23,000 a month ago.
Most health care authorities expect this trend to continue through December 2021.
Hospitalization has declined statewide as well. The current count shows 7,113 men, women and children were admitted for COVID care during the week of September 20-25, a decline of 20.7 percent.
However, the Florida fatality rate remained high, with 328 deaths on each of the last three days of the week. More than 53,124 Florida residents have succumbed to COVID-19 since the pandemic was declared officially as a national health emergency in March 2020.
Florida's average county-by-county rate of new infection fell from 13.5 percent to 11.2 percent in the six days ending September 19, which one media report characterized as "a further indication that the state may have passed the peak of the delta surge."
South Florida counties - Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade - have the state's lowest rates of COVID contagion. In Broward, which includes Dania Beach, this rate is just over eight percent, compared to a staggering 20 percent in mid-to-late August. A rate of five percent or below is considered safe for gatherings of 10 or more.
In Broward County, retail shops, restaurants and bars, theater and live performance venues are at full function, with varying degrees of restriction intended to contain COVID-19 and its variants. For example, many restaurants require masks for employees, but not for customers.
The AMO Executive Board will hold fast to its priority since March 2020 - shielding AMO members and their families from coronavirus infection.
For on-site membership meetings in November 2021 and later, the board will set appropriate, practical and effective health safeguards - including proof of vaccination or confirmation of a negative COVID test from the clinic operated by AMO Plans at STAR Center or another qualified testing source after five days in South Florida prior to the meeting.
Testing at the AMO clinic would be by appointment throughout the morning of the meeting because each result - positive or negative - takes 15 minutes following each test.
AMO members nearby in South Florida can schedule this diagnostic procedure at the clinic for November 5 at the latest for the November 8 meeting if the clinic is able to accommodate them.
AMO members attending class at STAR Center on the meeting date will have been vaccinated or tested. Unvaccinated students on campus for more than a week are tested weekly.
These requirements are already in place for all union officials, representatives and support staff at AMO headquarters and are similar to protocols in place at STAR Center.
The AMO Executive Board has also approved temperature checks at sign-in, and AMO boarding reps checking AMO member documentation of vaccine or testing status beginning at 1200. We expect substantial membership participation, given the return to on-site meetings, but we would encourage social distance in the meeting hall as conditions permit. Masks will be available for optional use.
But the board - mindful of the unprecedented, unpredictable nature of the pandemic - will be alert to all developments and will adapt and adjust its strategy and restrictions if necessary.
Because Florida no longer provides COVID-19 data as public information, we will continue to rely exclusively on what Florida reports nearly each week to the CDC. We have much important union business to discuss, and we are anxious to get the conversation underway.
Meanwhile, we ask all deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters AMO members to continue to stand in moral support of AMO members affected by this health crisis personally or among family and friends.
As always, we welcome comments, questions, complaints and perspectives from the seagoing AMO membership.
Paul Doell
President
September 27, 2021