Four teachers have died of Covid-19 within a 24-hour period in Broward County, Florida – a state that bans mask mandates. At least three of the teachers were unvaccinated, according to CNN, and they died just days before the fall semester was about to begin.
"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," said the president of the Broward Teachers Union, Anna Fusco.
From CNN:
Broward County Public Schools has had 138 employees test positive for Covid-19 since August 1, according to the school system's Covid-19 dashboard, which was updated Thursday. Classes are scheduled to begin next week, according to the school calendar; employees began planning on Wednesday.
The district already had found itself in the headlines in recent weeks for steps taken on mask mandates: Earlier this week the school board voted to maintain a mask mandate approved late last month, despite an executive order from Gov. Ron DeSantis effectively prohibiting such a requirement in school districts.
The order — the subject of several lawsuits — required the state's health and education departments to make rules giving parents, not schools, the ability to choose whether their children should wear masks.
I don't think this is what "freedom" is supposed to look like.
Image by Alexandra Campo – originally posted to Flickr as The Number 69, CC BY 2.0