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Miami businesses feeling Zika impact as federal agencies seek more funds
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While Congress squabbles over how to fund the nation’s response to Zika virus, business owners in a Miami neighborhood where people are being bitten by infected mosquitoes say they are feeling the impact of the local outbreak in their bottom lines.
Adi Kafri owns a catering company in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, where the first cases of locally acquired Zika virus in the continental United States were reported this summer. Kafri said the once-lively arts district north of downtown has become empty as businesses struggle to find revenue.
“This virus hangs like a cloud over our neighborhood,” she said.
Kafri and another local business owner were invited to speak during a teleconference call hosted by HHS about the impact of the Zika virus on small businesses in Florida and the continuing need for federal funding.
Owen Bale, who operates a restaurant in Wynwood with his husband, said his business saw a 75% drop in revenue over the summer while crowds in the arts district thinned. A quarter of the staff was laid off, Bale said.
Florida has reported more than 70 local Zika cases since July 29 and has stepped up efforts to rid the affected areas of the mosquitoes that transmit the disease. Near the beginning of the Miami outbreak, the CDC warned pregnant women to avoid the area around Wynwood where infected mosquitoes were thought to be biting people.
It was believed to be the first time the CDC had asked people to avoid an area in the U.S. over health concerns. Now, some businesses are struggling to pay rent, according to Bale, who said he used to hear complaints from his customers about how hard it was to get a reservation at his popular establishment.
“Zika brought an abrupt halt to that,” he said.
But while Bale complained about how health officials “placed a perfectly rectangular red box over Wynwood” while announcing the outbreak, and said the media was blowing the situation out of proportion, he does not think the travel warning was inappropriate.
“At the end of the day, we want our customers to be safe,” he said. “What we need is information and facts about the disease so that people can make informed decisions, because we feel that there has been scaremongering and some people have stopped coming to the neighborhood.”
New numbers released by the CDC show more than 20,000 total Zika cases in the U.S. and its territories, including more than 3,100 in the continental U.S. According to the CDC, 18 babies in the U.S. have been born with Zika-related birth defects, which can include microcephaly. Five pregnancies have been lost due to the virus, the agency said.
“It’s just a devastating problem and an unprecedented situation where mosquito bites can lead to birth defects and devastating long-term complications for families,” Anne Schuchat, MD, principal deputy director of the CDC, said during the teleconference.
The U.S. Travel Association and other related organizations have drafted letters to lawmakers urging the need for funding to combat Zika and help lessen the effect on the $2.1 trillion travel industry.
Anne Schuchat
Roger J. Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, a nonprofit that represents the travel industry, said the issue is bigger than the critical health concerns that have been raised by the spread of the virus.
“Leaders in government have to be aware of the potential economic damage if Washington doesn’t pass Zika funding,” Dow said on the call. “Thankfully, we have not seen any evidence of long-term damage yet, but it’s easy to imagine Americans looking at the news and deciding not to travel to Florida or the South, and it’s easy to imagine the world watching the news and deciding not to travel [here].”
So far, Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been unable to agree on a Zika spending bill, with each side blaming the other for a series of stalemates in the 7 months since President Barack Obama asked for $1.9 billion to fund the response.
In the latest failed attempt, the Senate was unable to compromise on a pair of bills after returning from a nearly 2-month recess last week. Democrats opposed the Republican-backed effort, saying it included an attack on Planned Parenthood and other partisan agendas.
Last month, the White House diverted $81 million in HHS spending to avoid what it said would be delays in developing a Zika vaccine. In a letter, HHS Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell said the agency had exhausted its ability to provide short-term financing and that the country’s response to Zika “sits squarely with Congress.”
The Obama administration had previously repurposed $589 million in the budget for Zika, including $510 million that had been set aside for the recent Ebola outbreak.
In Florida, the state health department still believes people are being infected in only two places, including Wynwood and an area of Miami Beach where the state agriculture department found the first mosquitoes in the continental U.S. to test positive for the virus.
Schuchat did not confirm Bale’s assertion that the CDC was considering lifting its travel warning for Miami on Monday, saying only that the agency planned to update its guidance for the area, barring any new local transmissions. – by Gerard Gallagher
Disclosures: Schuchat works for the CDC. Dow runs the U.S. Travel Association. Kafri and Bale run businesses in Miami.