COVID-19 cases rise by more than 100 in a week in Dade schools
Confirmed cases of coronavirus rose by more than 100 in Miami-Dade public schools. Cases also jumped in Broward schools.
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 within Miami-Dade County public schools jumped by more than 100 people over a week’s time, according to to the school district’s online dashboard tracking the virus.
Last Friday, a total of 332 students and teachers were confirmed to have tested positive. Thursday, that number was 438.
The real number is likely significantly higher because cases are not added to the ledger until the individual’s diagnosis is confirmed by the Florida Department of Health.
School district officials have repeatedly stressed since in-person learning reopened Oct. 5 that the dashboard should not be considered an up-to-date measure of the current COVID situation in schools.
Teachers union representatives say the high numbers of novel coronavirus cases translate to well over 1,000 students and dozens of teachers and other staff in the district who are currently quarantining at home because of potential exposure to the infected person.
“A lot of concerned people,” Karla HernandezMats, president of United Teachers of Dade, said in a text message Thursday. “Numbers continue to rise.”
The union wants clearer thresholds from district officials that specify how many cases trigger a temporary school closure for deep cleaning.
“We are trying to negotiate an addendum to our [letter of understanding] to create more safeguards, and we are not seeing an interest in moving in that direction,” HernandezMats said.
The district says it makes those decisions on a caseby-case basis.
Factors officials consider include the number of confirmed cases among students and staff, how many people were potentially exposed to the disease and if there is a potential outbreak.
Administrators will also consider whether it’s possible to notify everyone who may have come into contact with the infected person, and if they can sanitize the school before the next day.
But, the union questions why schools like MAST Academy on Virginia Key and Coral Park Elementary School in Westchester were closed for a day last month after two cases each, but schools like Miami Senior High, which has 13 confirmed cases listed on the dashboard, have not.
A district spokeswoman last week addressed the MAST closing, saying the decision was made because school officials found out about the cases on a Sunday, making accurate contact tracing “extremely difficult.”
Meanwhile, confirmed cases in Broward County public schools rose from about 150 students and staff to 249 this week. Unlike Dade, which updates its dashboard daily, Broward’s only does Tuesday and Friday of each week.
Keys cases are rising as well, but not as fast as its neighboring counties to the north, according to Monroe County schools officials. On Saturday, the Keys dashboard reported 23 students, three teachers and two non-teaching staff members. On Thursday, the cases for students rose to 29.