With schools open, children have become the canaries in the coal mine. Pediatric hospitalizations are surging due to COVID-19, pushing hospitals and health care workers to the limits. In Florida, there are more people dying of COVID-19 than ever before. There are also more children being infected than ever before.
Florida is averaging 250 COVID-19 deaths a day. 14 refrigerated mobile morgues have been moved to central Florida hospitals to handle the overflow of bodies. August deaths match the peak fatalities from the last wave of infections in January 2021.
Florida added 151,749 coronavirus cases. Nearly one out of every three infections was suffered by those age 19 and under.
More and more, COVID-19 is afflicting the state’s youngest residents. Ages 19 and under account for 32 percent of infections, or 48,215 cases. More than 9,000 Florida children test positive for coronavirus in two weeks since schools reopened.
Young Floridians also continue to lead all age groups in positivity rates: Ages 12-19 have a 23 percent positivity rate, the highest in the state. Children ages 12 and under have the second highest rate at 19 percent — and those 11 and under cannot be vaccinated.
Florida hospitals had 215 pediatric cases with confirmed COVID-19 as of Friday, the highest number of child hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic.
Five children under 16 have died from COVID-19 in Florida in the past four weeks.
Despite all this, Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis is still trying to keep local school boards from issuing mask mandates. A judge ruled August 20, 2021 that Florida school districts may impose mask mandates. Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper agreed with a group of parents who claimed in a lawsuit that DeathSantis’ order is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced. Despite his court loss, the governor has begun withholding the salaries of school district administrators who have refused to comply with his unconstitutional executive order prohibiting them from enforcing mask mandates in schools.
Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS), a district in Tampa, Florida, reopened to students for its first day of classes on August 10, 2021. The district had about 208,500 enrolled students as of the third day back at school.
The Orange County, Florida school district mandated masks after 400 COVID cases were reported in one day. The 60-day mask mandate requiring face coverings was institutes as the very contagious Delta variant ravages the state. The Orange County school board approved the mandate at its August 31, 2021 meeting, one day after the district confirmed more than 400 new cases of COVID-19 contracted by students and employees. The mandate goes into effect at the start of next week for all schools from pre-K through 12th grade. 382 students and 37 employees tested positive on August 30, 2021 . On August 31, 2021, the number of those quarantined was updated to 557. Orange County is the ninth Florida county to institute a mask mandate, going against the wishes of Republican Gov. Ron DeathSantis.
The legal battle over school re-openings, which have continued into this week, landed in court August 30, 2021 when Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson sided with the Florida Education Association and granted a temporary injunction against the state’s order that required brick-and-mortar schools to reopen. The mandate, Dodson wrote in his ruling, “arbitrarily disregards safety.” Since Aug. 9, 2021 another child has also died, bringing the total to eight. How many canaries must die in the Governor’s political power play to send kids back to school without CDC advised safety precautions?