This post will be updated today, Monday, August 10, and through the week with the latest information on COVID-19 in South Florida.
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WLRN staff continues to add to community resource lists, including this articleon where kids and families can get food while schools are closed, and this postabout whether and where to get tested for coronavirus.
The dedicated website for the Florida Department of Health, including information about symptoms and numbers of cases, can be found here.
The dedicated website from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can be found here.
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QUICK UPDATES
State Feedback Prompts Palm Beach County To Reconsider Plan For Eventual School Reopening
Updated Monday at 5 p.m.
The Palm Beach County school district is still planning to start the school year virtually. But following pushback from the Florida Department of Education, district leaders are rethinking their approach for which students should be welcomed back to classrooms first, once the county beats back COVID-19 enough to allow for a safe reopening.
Initially, the district planned a phased reopening, with students in “transition grades” allowed back first: pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, first, sixth and ninth grades, as well as some students with disabilities.
Now, Superintendent Donald Fennoy said he is “reevaluating” after state education officials took issue with that aspect of the district’s reopening plan.
“I propose amending the return to brick-and-mortar, in-person instruction, when county health conditions permit, to be based on parent choice, without any phasing of re-entry by grade level or program,” Fennoy wrote in a memo Monday.
He will discuss his recommendation with the school board during a special meeting 2 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 12.
The state education department and Gov. Ron DeSantis have been pressuring districts to offer an in-person option for all students, five days a week, stressing that parents should be allowed to make the best decision for their families.
Palm Beach — as well as Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties — have so far resisted the call to open any classrooms to students as the pandemic rages in South Florida. Broward is considering a pilot program of in-person classes for some students with disabilities, but the district has yet to finalize that plan.
Also Monday, the Miami-Dade school district published its reopening guide. Read it here.
— Jessica Bakeman/WLRN News
Florida Adds More Than 4,100 New Positive Cases
Updated Monday at 1 p.m.
Florida surpassed 536,000 positive cases of COVID-19 as Florida’s Department of Health confirmed an additional 4,155 cases of COVID-19 Monday. Florida has a total of 518,075 confirmed positive cases, according to the state's health department.
Monday's update also included the announcement of 91 new deaths, increasing the statewide number to 8,277. Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties make up 3,631 of those reported deaths. Monroe County has reported 13 deaths due to COVID-19.
-WLRN News
Updated Monday at 7:00 a.m.
COVID-19 Cases Top 5 Million in US With Odds for Highly Effective Vaccine ‘Not Great’
As kids across the nation prepare to head back to school, more than 5 million people in the United States have been confirmed with coronavirus, Johns Hopkins University reports.
There have been more than 19.6 million confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus worldwide, with more than 727,000 deaths, according to the university. More than 162,000 people have died in the United States.
The United States leads the world in confirmed cases, followed by Brazil with more than 3 million cases and India with more than 2.1 million, Johns Hopkins University reported.
Read more from our news partner at the Miami Herald
-Don Sweeney/Miami Herald
As US Reaches 5 Million COVID-19 Infections, Europe Alarmed With Failure To Contain Spread: 'Don't They Care About Their Health?'
ROME — With confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. hitting 5 million Sunday, by far the highest of any country, the failure of the most powerful nation in the world to contain the scourge has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe.
Perhaps nowhere outside the U.S. is America’s bungled virus response viewed with more consternation than in Italy, which was ground zero of Europe’s epidemic. Italians were unprepared when the outbreak exploded in February, and the country still has one of the world’s highest official death tolls at over 35,000.
But after a strict nationwide, 10-week lockdown, vigilant tracing of new clusters and general acceptance of mask mandates and social distancing, Italy has become a model of virus containment.
To read more, visit our news partner at the Sun Sentinel
-Nicole Winfield/Lisa Marie Pane/Associated Press
