UPDATED 3:26 p.m. ET: In a correction issued by Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco, the four people who died were two teachers, one teacher assistant, and a “Broward County Public Schools graduate with close ties to the school district through her job.” All of them were female.
See original story below.
Florida, a state with political leadership hell-bent on standing in the way of protective pandemic measures, saw four educators in the Broward County school system die within a 24-hour period due to COVID-19.
Between Tuesday and Wednesday, per CBS Miami, three Broward County school teachers and one assistant died after contracting COVID-19. At least three of the educators have been confirmed to have been unvaccinated, while the vaccination status of the fourth was not known at the time of this writing.
“In a 24-hour span, we had an [assistant] pass away, a teacher at her school also pass away, another teacher at another elementary school pass away, and another teacher at a high school,” Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco said, adding that it’s “extremely frightening” to be met with such news on a daily basis.
Complex has reached out to reps for the Broward County School Board and the Broward Teachers Union for comment.
Earlier this week, the School Board of Broward County held a special meeting during which they approved the district’s new school reopening plan, notably deciding that masks will remain mandatory. This meant standing in oppposition to Governor Ron DeSantis, who remains obsessed with targeting mask mandates.
In a statement this week, for example, DeSantis—who one year ago compared reopening schools to killing Osama bin Laden—threatened the withholding of salaries for those who went against his executive order barring mask mandates from being put in place. He later seemingly backed off that threat.
DeSantis isn’t alone among the Republican party when it comes to targeting mask policies. Other district officials in Arizona and Texas, among other states, have also elected to defy attempts at preventing mandates from being instituted.
According to the most recent stats, roughly half of Florida’s total population is fully vaccinated.
