As students head into winter break, COVID-19 numbers rise in South Florida schools
More than 2,600 Miami-Dade County students, teachers and staff and 1,173 in Broward schools have tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19, according to the districts.
The day before South Florida public-school students were set to go on their twoweek winter break, cases of COVID-19 among pupils and staff continued to rise.
The Florida Department of Health confirmed that 1,811 students and 830 employees had tested positive for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 as of Thursday. The 2,641 cases reflect the total number since Miami-Dade public-school students and teachers returned to in-person classes on
Oct. 5.
The case numbers are posted on the school district’s online COVID-19 dashboard. The number of actual cases is likely higher, however, because the Florida Department of Health must confirm selfreported diagnoses before
separate program called VTrckS, run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — they discovered that the actual doses that they would be receiving were far lower.
Local officials expressed confusion and disappointment on Thursday as they discovered the discrepancy, with states — including Florida — asking for an explanation from the federal government.
Officials with Operation Warp Speed, the federal program responsible for overseeing the development and distribution of coronavirus vaccines, denied that the allocation numbers were ever cut, but did not explain why states had been left with the impression that they would be getting more shipments next week than they are.
“Operation Warp Speed allocation numbers locked in with states have not been changed or adjusted,” said a Health and Human Services spokesperson. “Allocations will depend on the amount of vaccine available.
Each week, OWS will let states know how many doses are available to order ... for the coming week. Shipments to a jurisdiction may arrive over several days.
“Operation Warp Speed remains on track to allocate enough vaccine for about 20 million Americans to receive their first doses before the end of the month,” the HHS spokesperson stated. “Reports that jurisdictions’ allocations are being reduced are incorrect.”
The COVID-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer was made available to Americans after an emergency-use authorization by the FDA on Dec. 11. A second vaccine, which was made by Moderna, received the same authorization on Friday.
In a statement, Pfizer said the company was “not having any production issues with our COVID-19 vaccine” and that no shipments are on hold or delayed.
“Going forward, the Tiberius numbers should be correct. The problem is, when they looked at them last week, and when they got to ordering them now, they were different,” the federal official explained. “Everything in Tiberius was for planning purposes, not official allocations — and they clearly did not make that clear to states.”