Four teachers in one Florida school district died from COVID within 24 hours, between Tuesday and Wednesday, less than one week before school begins, according to CBS Miami.
“Within a 24-hour span, we had an assistant teacher pass away, a teacher at her school pass away, an elementary teacher pass away and another teacher at a high school,” Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco said.
It is a tragedy that Fusco said she hears about way too often in Florida, the epicenter of the delta surge in the U.S.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has signed an executive order banning mask mandates in schools and directs the Department of Education to penalize districts that enact them by withholding millions of dollars in state education funding. But, the Broward County School Board voted on Tuesday to defy Gov. DeSantis’ order and maintain their mask mandate that was originally approved on July 28.
Three of the teachers who died were unvaccinated. It is not clear if the fourth teacher had been vaccinated.
Florida is in the midst of a massive Covid surge, with cases, hospitalizations and deaths rising rapidly.
The state is leading the nation in new cases, making up about 20 percent of all new infections. But DeSantis, who’s long been against any type of restriction, is showing no signs of wavering from that stance.Â
