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THE VILLAGES, Fla. — For months, many of the residents at one of America’s biggest retirement communities went about their lives as if the coronavirus barely existed. They played bridge. They held dances. They went to house parties in souped-up golf carts that looked like miniature Jaguars and Rolls-Royces. And for months they appeared to have avoided the worst of the pandemic. From March through mid-June, there were fewer than 100 cases in The Villages, a sprawling community in Central Florida where about 120,000 people mostly 55 and older live. But now as cases spike across Florida, the virus appears to have caught up with the residents of The Villages. Since the beginning of July, hospital admissions of residents from The Villages have quadrupled at University of Florida Heal...

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