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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis remains firm in his conviction to keep the state open. This Tuesday he announced that he will not close Florida schools and will leave it up to parents to decide whether or not to send their children to the classroom.
DeSantis rejected the support received by the teachers’ unions from the Democratic Party, who have expressed their disagreement with the reopening Florida schools.
“These children have been out of school for almost a year, so if they follow the CDC’s new recommendations, they won’t be back this school year or in the fall,” the Florida governor said.
The governor said parents can decide whether or not their children go to face-to-face classes, or stay with virtual schooling.
“Those who insist on keeping the school doors closed are ignoring the evidence and putting special interests before the best interests of children and families,” he said.
On Sunday the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) decided to back down and said that “more resources” are needed to return to in-person instruction.
Rochelle Walensky now joins the position of the teachers’ unions that demand more resources and to be 100% vaccinated to return to school.
Experts around the world have warned against school closures, pointing to the long-term damage that a lack of learning can do to millions of children worldwide.
A report published in The Lancet notes that the charity Save the Children predicted that, by the end of 2020, half a million more children worldwide would be forced into marriage and a million more girls would become pregnant as an indirect result of COVID-19.
The cost of school closures, in terms of lost education, potential exposure to abuse and, in some countries, the premature end of schooling in favor of work or marriage could have devastating social impacts that will blight a generation of children.
Save The Children
Late last year, Congress passed legislation that included $54.3 billion for public schools, a figure on top of the $13 billion provided in March 2020 to school districts through the Cares Act. “This is more than the federal government normally spends on education in an entire year,” Rubio said.
Margaret A. Honein, lead author of the JAMA report, quoted by The Washington Post, said, “The bottom line is that with the right prevention efforts we can keep transmission in schools and educational settings at a fairly low level.”
The researcher further commented that the studies showed that even in places with high infection rates there is no evidence that schools transmit the virus at higher levels than those observed in the community. He clarified, however, that this is always going to depend on continuing to take all sanitary precautions.
Florida schools open, California’s close: both have the same COVID-19 case trends
A Fox News report revealed that, despite dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in very different ways, California and Florida have experienced similar trends with the number of coronavirus cases.
While California is closing businesses, schools and restaurants, Florida schools and businesses are open without affecting the number of jobs, yet the pandemic trends are going similarly.
The latest data from Johns Hopkins University show that California has reported nearly 3.5 million cases of COVID-19 overall, while Florida has reported more than 1.82 million.
Florida’s population is slightly more than half that of California. But even with that difference considered, both states have reported similar percentages of cases and deaths compared to the general population.
California’s total number of COVID-19 cases as a percentage of the population is about 8.8%, while Florida’s is about 8.3%. Of all the people in California who have contracted COVID-19, approximately 1.35% have died, while in Florida, the figure is approximately 1.57%, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Sabrina Martín Rondon is a Venezuelan journalist. Her source is politics and economics. She is a specialist in corporate communications and is committed to the task of dismantling the supposed benefits of socialism // Sabrina Martín Rondon es periodista venezolana. Su fuente es la política y economía. Es especialista en comunicaciones corporativas y se ha comprometido con la tarea de desmontar las supuestas bondades del socialismo