Three teachers and one teacher’s assistants in Broward County, Florida, died of COVID-19 within 24 hours of each other earlier this week, and media outlets are hyping the deaths in a continued push to increase fear about COVID-19.
At least three of the teachers who died were unvaccinated (the fourth one’s vaccine status is unknown at this time), and the deaths occurred nearly a week before school starts. This means the teachers weren’t in the classrooms, making their profession irrelevant to their deaths.
As the New York Post’s Karol Markowicz noted on Twitter, even though media outlets are using the deaths of these teachers to push masks in schools (again, despite school not being open yet), they are treating the deaths of the unvaccinated teachers differently than the deaths of other unvaccinated people.
“It’s amazing the dead unvaccinated teachers aren’t getting the “lol unvaccinated person died” point and laugh treatment from the media. Just shows the priority list and at the top is hurting Gov. DeSantis. I get it but be less obvious, come on,” Markowicz wrote.
Broward County, Florida, is also a more liberal county in the Sunshine State and is currently battling Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) over his executive order banning schools from forcing students to wear masks without parental consent. As The Daily Wire previously reported, the Broward County School Board voted on Tuesday to keep its mask mandate in place despite the governor’s ban. In response to the school board’s vote, Florida education commissioner Richard Corcoran sent a letter saying he was opening an investigation into the school’s non-compliance.
“This letter is sent to express my grave concern regarding your district’s significant neglect in response to the governor’s order banning mask mandates in schools,” Corcoran wrote, according to RedState. “The action taken today at the Broward County School Board meeting makes it clear that you have no current intentions of complying with this order, which is intended to guarantee choice options to parents/guardians regarding their child while also protecting families and students federal and state protected rights to privacy.”
“I am immediately initiating an investigation of non-compliance with rules adopted by the Florida Department of Health and the Florida State Board of Education on August 6, 2021. In commencing this investigation, I am demanding that you provide a written response by 5 p.m. on Friday, August 13, 2021, documenting on how your district is complying with [the state order],” he continued.
DeSantis gave the county until Friday to comply with his executive order or risk losing pay for the school officials and administrators implementing the mask mandate.
“Any failure to adequately document and substantiate full compliance with this rule will result in sanctions permitted under law … Depending on the facts presented, I may recommend to the State Board of Education that the Department withhold funds in an equal amount to the salaries for the Superintendent and all the members of the School Board,” Corcoran wrote in his letter.
“There is no room for error or leniency when it comes to ensuring compliance with policies that allow parents and guardians to make health and educational choices or their children,” he added. “Again, if this matter is not addressed by submitting the documentation establishing compliance with the law, maximum accountability measures provided for under the law will be imposed.”
The White House has weighed in, warning DeSantis about his position on masks for children, even though numerous studies have shown children are at an extremely low risk for contracting the virus.
“If you’re not interested in following the public health guidelines to protect the lives of people in your state, to give parents some comfort as they’re sending their kids to school, schools are opening in Florida this week I know, in many parts of Florida, then get out of the way and let public officials, let local officials do their job to keep students safe,” Psaki said. “This is serious, and we’re talking about people’s lives, and we know based on public health guidelines that even though kids under a certain age are not yet eligible, masks can have a huge impact.”