The mayor of Miami speaks under COVID-19 quarantine

Miami's mayor, Francis X. Suarez, spoke to Yahoo Finance while under self-quarantine. He shared how he became infected and what Miami's next steps are to curb the coronavirus outbreak.

Video Transcript

FRANCIS SUAREZ: I just think people need to take this seriously. They need to follow the medical professional. The more we work together, the faster, hopefully, we can get past this. I was in a council meeting, and the news broke that somebody in a delegation that came with them to Miami with the Brazilian president on Monday and Tuesday that I received was confirmed, tested positive. This is an individual that I probably shook his hand, most likely had a conversation with, and someone sent me a picture that I was a few feet away from him.

So once I saw that, I knew that I immediately had to quarantine. And then I got a call from the Department of Health within hours asking me to go in and get tested even though I wasn't symptomatic. The testing process was basically to cotton swabs in your nose, deep in your nose, and two cotton swabs deep in your throat against the back of your tongue put in a test tube, and then they ship it off.

I was surprised. I realize something this is something that was not only going to have ramifications for me personally, but it was going to have significant ramifications for the government that I run. I mean, I come into contact with hundreds, if not thousands of people. We're a government of 4,500 employees that services over half a million people on a daily basis. So the ramifications of me testing positive were a tremendous weight on my shoulders because I knew that it would be something that would affect a lot of people.

I feel great today. Today's probably the best day that I've felt since I tested positive. Yesterday I had congestion. The congestion has gone away. I have a little bit of heaviness in my eyes, a little bit of fatigue, but that's very minor. So I'm almost completely symptom free.

I've been very busy doing a lot of interviews, working a lot. It's been tough for my family, obviously, because I haven't been able to see them, touch them, hug them. So that's very, very difficult. But I've been able to connect with people that I have not connected with in a long time.

We're asking people to stay home. We're asking them to remain home unless they have to do something essential. So basically, that's supermarkets, hospitals, gas stations, restaurants for takeout, banks, things that are essential to our day-to-day life. We're asking them if they do have to go outside, to please, obviously, respect social distancing. We're asking all spring breakers to go home.

I don't control the beaches, but thankfully, they were shut down. And you know, we're hunkering down as we have done during major storms, trying to weather this out so we can get back to normal life as quickly as possible. To me, it's the small business owners. It's the employees. It's the everyday people that work paycheck to paycheck are the ones that right now are struggling the most, are very anxious. Obviously, we're waiting to see what kind of direct help we get. And obviously, FEMA is a big part of it in terms of our reimbursements. We're in the process of trying to secure testing capabilities in the city, and that's obviously something that's going to be a FEMA reimbursement, as well as a variety of other tools that we're trying to use to communicate with our residents.

The next steps are getting our testing facilities up and running as quickly as possible. I think supporting our first responders and our hospitals that may get overwhelmed, trying to get as many supplies as we can, and also reassuring the public and communicating.