ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Coronavirus cases are rising in school districts in Central Florida.
With just days in the classroom under everyone’s belts, the impacts of the latest coronavirus surge are becoming clearer.
Orange County added 52 students and 28 teacher cases between Wednesday and Thursday. See a breakdown of cases here.
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Lake County Schools had 23 infected students and more than 200 in quarantine as of Friday morning.
With no mask mandates and continually low vaccination rates, headlines coming out of other southern states show where Central Florida could be heading.
Two Atlanta-area elementary schools are reverting to all virtual instructions due to high numbers of cases.
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On Friday, an entire school district in Mississippi will go virtual after 40% of its high school students had to be quarantined in the first week of classes.
The district only implemented a mask mandate after cases began rising. Florida districts however don’t have either option unless they wanted to fight the state.
“I think it’s going to be a chaotic year until we can get the pandemic under control,” Orange County Classroom Teachers Association President Wendy Doromal said. “That’s not going to happen in Florida.
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Estimates for how many of the county’s teachers are vaccinated range from 40% to 70% depending on who you ask.
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