BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. — In the nation's sixth-largest public school system, parents, students and teachers are in mourning.
Three teachers and a teaching assistant with Broward County Public Schools have died of COVID complications within just 24 hours, according to CNN.
The cable network says at least three of the educators were unvaccinated.
“It was a sad day for three schools because our teachers walked back on campus with their principals and they got the news from their families that they wouldn’t be reporting because they passed away from Covid,” Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco told the Miami Herald.
None of the four educators contracted the virus at school, according to the newspaper.
According to CBS Miami, the school system recently voted 8-1 to mandate masks in the classroom. The decision was in direct defiance of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' order banning such restrictions.
School Board Chair Dr. Rosalind Osgood told CBS she didn't want to play Russian roulette with the lives of kids, especially after last school year.
Florida's largest teacher's union closely tracked pandemic statistics last year in schools. Based on state data obtained through June 2, 2021, the Florida Education Association said 46 active educators and 10 school-aged children had died of COVID-19 complications during the 2020-2021 school year.
While children and adolescents can and transmit coronavirus infections to others, the CDC findings are clear that kids "are less likely" to become seriously ill or die of COVID-19.
"Compared with adults, children and adolescents who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 are more commonly asymptomatic (never develop symptoms) or have mild, non-specific symptoms (e.g. headache, sore throat)," the CDC writes. "Similar to adults with SARS-CoV-2 infections, children and adolescents can spread SARS-CoV-2 to others when they do not have symptoms or have mild, non-specific symptoms and thus might not know that they are infected and infectious."
Based on CDC data, 52.8 percent of people in Broward County are fully-vaccinated. About 65.6 percent of the population has had at least one dose.
While progress is being made on vaccinating young people, there isn't currently a vaccine with emergency approval for children under 12 in the U.S.
Broward County's official first day of school is Aug. 18.