3 Unvaccinated Florida Teachers Succumb to Covid-19 Within 24 Hours

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Three teachers from Florida’s Broward County have died from COVID-19 in just a 24-hour period.
• All the three educators were unvaccinated.
• The Broward County School Board has instituted mask mandates across the county’s schools amid Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) objection.

Three unvaccinated teachers in Florida’s Broward County passed away due to COVID-19 in just a 24-hour period.

NPR reported that the three educators were 48-year-old Janice Write from Pinewood Elementary, Katina Jones and Yolonda Hudson-Williams, both 49, from Dillard Elementary school.

Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco said that this week was difficult as they prepared for the school reopenings on Wednesday.

“The whole excitement of going back was just running through our teachers when we went back to work on Wednesday,” Fusco told NPR. “And then the sense of anxiety that our governor’s interfering with the safety protocols and wanting to block the mask mandate because they know it’s an extra layer of protection. And then the deaths that were reported.”

Per Broward County School Board Chair Rosalind Osgood, the school district was urging all the staff to get inoculated. They even offered monetary benefits for those who will avail of the vaccines. She told CNN, though, that “there are a lot of people that have still not gotten the vaccination… And it is becoming a deadly thing for them not to be vaccinated.”

In an 8-1 vote on Tuesday, the Broward County’s school board ruled to mandate masks in all district schools covering all staff, students and guests. Parents and guardians will be given a choice for their children to “opt out” and continue going to school without a mask.

“The eight of us on our board are adamant that we cannot have people in schools without masks, because we are living in the backlash of people dying with COVID,” Osgood said. “You can’t take a risk with people’s lives. We feel strongly that the lives of our students and staff are invaluable, and we’re not willing to play Russian roulette with their lives or take a risk of losing people because we have people in schools without masks.”

The policy was enforced amid the opposition of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) against mask mandates. He even warned not to provide salaries to school board members and superintendents who will object to his ‘maskless’ guidance.

Around 50 percent of Florida’s population had been fully-vaccinated against the virus.

In the last two weeks, COVID-19 hospitalizations soared by 61 percent across the state. On Friday alone, Florida recorded almost 50,000 new infections, per the New York Times.

Source: PEOPLE.com