Schools do nothing against omicron By John Paul Pumariega, staff intern In December 2021, a new COVID-19 variant was identified: omicron. The fast spreading variant affected a large part of the USA, including nearly 2 million new cases in this state since Dec. 3, according to the Florida Department of Health. The federal government responded with more social distancing and encouraged wearing your mask more often. Through all of this, the virus was still spreading rapidly in high-density states including Florida, New York and California. In some areas, teacher unions wanted to return to online schooling. Chicago Public Schools teachers did not come back from winter break to negotiate greater safeguards from their administrators. But shortly after they returned, students organized
a walkout. In Broward, the district couldn’t do much towards the situation because state law prohibited mask mandates. With COVID-19 cases on the rise around the state, Gov. Ron DeSantis pledged to keep schools open and in-person classes going without imposing any new restrictions or mask regulations. In fact, while hundreds of students and instructors missed the first days of school in 2022, the DeSantis administration advised asymptomatic people to avoid being tested for the coronavirus. The first week back from winter break, 45 cases were reported at this school, according to a staff-wide email. In most weeks, the number of cases here has been in the single digits. Overall in my opinion, the district and the state did not respond to the variant very well, resulting in a very high increase of cases.
Source: The New York Times GRAPHIC BY ALISHA DUROSIER
thetornadotimes.org < February 2022> Opinion | 7
