Four teachers in Florida’s Broward County have died from Covid-19 within 24 hours, according to the county’s teachers union.
Three of the educators were not vaccinated from the disease, the union’s president told CBS News. The teachers died between Tuesday and Wednesday, Anna Fusco said.
Broward County Public Schools – encompassing the second-largest county in the state – have mandated that students, staff and visitors at its schools must wear face coverings, defying an order from Governor Ron DeSantis that bans such mandates, despite surging infections across the US.
The governor has also urged school officials to slash educators’ salaries for enforcing mandates, as millions of students return to in-person instruction for the 2021-2022 school year against climbing rates of infections and hospitalisations among children.
Two states with the highest number of pediatric admissions – Florida, which has seen a recent daily average of 54 children admitted to hospitals, and Texas, where the daily average is 40 – have both banned mask mandates for schools. Arizona also implemented a similar ban.
Governor DeSantis’ order requires the state’s health and education departments to make rules giving parents and guardians – rather than schools – a choice as to whether their children should wear masks.
At least 138 employees in Broward County Public Schools has have tested positive for Covid-19 since 1 August, according to the school system’s Covid-19 dashboard.
Just two days after Palm Beach County schools reopened, at least 440 students were sent home, according to the county’s interim superintendent Michael Burke.
The incident is one of several across the US forcing thousands of school children and families in 14 states to quarantine as schools reopen.
Every one of the nation’s 100 largest districts serving roughly 100 million students are fully reopening schools for in-person instruction this fall, according to an analysis from The New York Times.
Of those districts, only 53 per cent are requiring students to wear masks, and eight of 10 are offering all-virtual options, the analysis found. Only four districts – Cincinnati, Denver, San Francisco and Washington DC – are requiring vaccinations, and seven will require regular Covid-19 testing among staff and students.
