Masks, other COVID-19 mitigation protocols could soon return to Miami-Dade schools
COVID-19 mitigation strategies such as mask-wearing could soon return to Miami-Dade Schools following a recent surge in cases in Florida brought on by the more transmissible omicron variant.
That’s according to Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who tweeted on Tuesday the district “will do the right thing by our children, our workforce and our community.” He continued: District officials “will release a set of updated protocols prior to the end of this week.”
District staff is reviewing existing protocols and analyzing data, though no specific changes to the protocols have been finalized, said district spokeswoman Daisy Gonzalez-Diego. Furthermore, echoing Carvalho, she said the updated protocols are to be released by week’s end.
Students and staff are expected to return from winter break Monday, Jan. 3
No potential changes have been announced for Broward County Public Schools.
The move comes less than two months after Miami-Dade and Broward school districts eased their guidelines on masks and allowed parents to opt their children out from wearing masks while at school. Officials at the time attributed their decision to improved COVID conditions in South Florida regarding the delta variant. (Students had been wearing masks since October 2020, when students returned to in-person learning after pivoting to remote learning in March 2020 when schools closed at the onset of the pandemic.)
Omicron sweeping across country, Florida
Now, those conditions are changing once again as the omicron variant sweeps through Florida, with South Florida leading the surge in new cases. On Tuesday, Florida reported 29,059 additional new COVID cases Monday to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Miami Herald calculations of CDC data. In the past seven days, Florida has added 26,537 cases per day on average, the highest seven-day case average since Aug. 23.
The spike in cases is due to the omicron variant, which has become the dominant strain of the coronavirus in Florida.
The potential changes — and Carvalho’s willingness to defy state legislation — should come as no surprise. In an interview with the Herald Editorial Board Dec. 17, Carvalho said the public should expect him to “follow, debate, argue and defend the best scientific advice that we’ll be getting not only from our local experts but also from federal agencies that opine on these matters.”
The district has worked with a group of medical experts in implementing its COVID protocols.
While Carvalho admitted the state’s new law banning school districts across the state from imposing mask mandates makes it “more difficult to follow the science,” he said, “it’s incumbent upon us to protect students at all costs.” When the delta virus was surging in the summer, Miami-Dade Schools and about 10 other Florida school districts bucked Gov. DeSantis’ executive order banning mask mandates in public schools.
In a special session in November, the Florida Legislature passed a series of laws, signed by DeSantis, that in addition to banning mask mandates in public schools, would restrict businesses’ ability to mandate vaccines for their employees, among other measures.
Carvalho announced earlier this month that he was leaving Miami to become the superintendent for Los Angeles public schools. The district has not announced a date as to when he will be leaving. The Miami-Dade School Board will meet in January to start the search for his replacement.
This story was originally published December 28, 2021 at 5:00 PM.
