Miami Commissioner Jeffrey Watson released from hospital after bout with COVID-19

Miami Commissioner Jeffrey Watson has been released from the hospital after a one-week stay due to COVID-19.

Watson’s acting chief of staff, Neil Shiver, confirmed the commissioner’s discharge for the Miami Herald on Saturday. Watson, 63, will stay with a staffer in Coconut Grove to be close to his commission office on Dinner Key.

“He will be in the Grove for the next three nights to be close to City Hall, in the likely event he feels strong enough to work next week,” Shiver said.

Watson went to the hospital Feb. 26 after he had difficulty breathing and the fire chief recommended he get medical attention.

In a phone interview from his room at Jackson Memorial Hospital on Wednesday, Watson said said the virus hit him hard, and he encouraged people to get vaccinated because the novel coronavirus “was not your grandma’s pneumonia.”

“This ain’t something where you can run with it and be a big man about it,” Watson said. “If it can catch you right, it’ll throw you down on the floor. It’ll put you in the hospital.”

Watson and his staff have urged Black seniors to get vaccinated for the past few months. His office has coordinated with city staff to distribute the city’s allotment of vaccines at senior living facilities in his district, which includes Overtown, Liberty City, Little Haiti, Wynwood and the Upper Eastside.