Mayor Talks New Testing Site In St. Pete And School Reopenings

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — A new testing site for coronavirus opening in St. Petersburg, and the concerns for children of schools reopening in August are a couple of the city topics Mayor Rick Kriseman discussed on his weekly Facebook Live briefing.

"We are also working with our state and county partners to get a testing site running at full speed at the Mahaffey Theater," said Kriseman.

The testing site opens at 11:30 a.m. to the public on Wednesday, July 8, at the Mahaffey Theater parking garage located at 400 1st St S. It will have a regular operating schedule of Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. It is a drive-thru only, and open to anyone.

The Florida Department of Health reported on Tuesday that Pinellas County has a total of 9,032 confirmed coronavirus cases; 798 hospitalizations and 206 deaths. The statewide number of positive cases reported by FDH is 213,794; 16,425 hospitalizations and 3,841 deaths.

On Monday, Florida's Commissioner of Education ordered all school buildings to reopen in August, but also gave school districts flexibility to use what officials described as innovative teaching methods to educate children, as reported by Sarasota Patch.

"That order came out earlier than I certainly would have expected, especially when you see the rise that we've seen throughout the state of Florida, and the number of positive tests and the number of positive cases," Kriseman said.

Kriseman said that if we don't see these coronavirus numbers decrease then the districts will need that flexibility as opposed to having to send children back to school because a lot of parents would be upset about that. He added that he doesn't know how comfortable he would be sending his child to school either.

He expressed that he doesn't understand why the governor is distancing himself when it comes to making statewide decisions.

"I do think that what's interesting here though, and it's a pattern that we've seen, is for whatever reason the governor seems to be distancing himself from making this consequential decisions," said Kriseman. "This order related to schools was done by the education commissioner—it wasn't done by the governor. And the previous order related to restaurants and bars, that was done by the department of professional regulations, not by the governor.

I think it's more appropriate for the governor be the one that is entering these orders. They impact the whole state, and he is the leader of our state."

But he is glad that the governor didn't make the decision about the schools so that way the district can have a say in schools opening in Pinellas County in August.