Florida, Texas schools mandate masks; 11 states report 1M COVID cases
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Half of all states have each reported at least half a million COVID-19 cases, and Oklahoma and Kentucky each have reported their 500,000th coronavirus case Monday, a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows.
In all, 11 states have reported at least 1 million cases each: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina, New Jersey and Michigan.
In Kentucky on Monday, 1,139 people were hospitalized compared with a few hundred a day in June and early July. Numbers of patients in intensive care and on ventilators also have risen steadily.
In Oklahoma, the state’s seven-day average of new daily cases now tops 2,000 per day. The last time’s the state’s rate of daily cases was higher was in early February.
During a news conference at the downtown fire station, emergency response authorities said Oklahoma City is among cities around the nation enduring a shortage of qualified emergency medical technicians and paramedics who provide pre-hospital treatment, care and transportation.
“When we look at the confluence of a busy summer in Oklahoma City, we are in the midst of not just a pandemic, but by all scientific evidence, the fourth wave of this pandemic in the United States,” EMSA Medical Director Jeffrey Goodloe said.
– Mike Stucka, USA TODAY and Josh Dulaney, Oklahoman
Also in the news:
►The superintendent of the school district in the capital of Florida said Monday that he will require masks, even as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an order suggesting punishments for school districts that mandate mask-wearing in classrooms.
►The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday raised its travel advisory for France, Israel and Thailand to level four, which discourages visiting those countries because of large caseloads of COVID-19.
►The Pentagon will require members of the U.S. military to get the COVID-19 vaccine by Sept. 15, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.
►Most state workers in Washington, as well as private health care and long-term care employees, will be required to show proof of vaccination for the coronavirus by Oct. 18 or will lose their jobs.
►Mexico will ask the United States to send at least 3.5 million more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as the country faces a third wave of infections.
📈 Today’s numbers: The U.S. has had more than 35.9 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 617,300 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: More than 203.5 million cases and 4.3 million deaths. More than 166.6 million Americans – 50.1% of the population – have been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
📘 What we’re reading: Staff and faculty at colleges across the country are raising concerns about returning to on-campus work, particularly as the delta variant causes a surge in cases nationwide. Read the full story.
Keep refreshing this page for the latest news. Want more? Sign up for USA TODAY’s Coronavirus Watch newsletter to receive updates directly to your inbox and join our Facebook group.
In districts across the country, school board meetings have become the battlegrounds of unruly debates over mask mandates in schools schools. Fueled by misinformation campaigns against masks, tensions have heightened in schools, turning once sparsely attended school board meetings into shouting matches.
Most recently, anger over mask requirements boiled over in North Carolina when a group of unruly parents opposing Buncombe County’s mask requirements “overthrew” the current board and instated themselves into the positions. Roughly 30 people signed loose-leaf paper claiming themselves “witnesses” of the new school board.
“They acted as a dictatorship, and so therefore, the people then take it into our own hands to abolish that governance and reelect new members right then and there,” the group’s leader, Stephanie Parsons, said.
Buncombe County Schools attorney Dean Shatley said the group’s actions “unequivocally” do not mean the current school board is out of office.
“I know they’re very passionate and care a tremendous amount about what they were here to speak about, but what they did has no authority under the law,” he said.
Other school board meetings across the country have been rescheduled because of rowdy anti-masking protests, one of which led to charges filed in July against 11 people who interrupted a Utah school board meeting.
Florida counties report COVID cases four times higher than last year
Most Florida children are returning to school in areas where COVID-19 outbreaks are far more intense than they were when school started last year.
In most counties, cases are at least four times higher than a year ago, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. Five counties report a more than tenfold increase.
Cases among children are surging too, raising questions about the health consequences of students returning to campuses and a state ban on school mask mandates while vaccines are available for only some of the schoolchildren.
Public health experts and pediatricians said last fall that the most important factor to consider when deciding whether to start classes in-person was the amount of viral spread in the community at large. With cases so much higher than last year, districts are going against those recommendations by welcoming students to campus and limiting online learning options.
— Jayme Fraser and Mike Stucka, USA TODAY
The second-largest school district in Texas is defying the governor’s executive order barring mask mandates, officials announced Monday. Following their announcement, another district in a major metropolitan area in Texas joined them.
“We’re in a situation that has gotten significantly more urgent,” said Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Michael Hinojosa in his announcement that the district would be the first in the state to require masks for students and teachers.
Austin Superintendent Stephanie S. Elizalde announced late Monday the district will require face masks, defying Gov. Greg Abbott’s orders banning mask mandates amid a surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations from the highly contagious delta variant.
And Houston ISD Superintendent Millard House II is expected to seek approval for a mask mandate from the school board of the largest school district in the state this week.
Gov. Greg Abbott has continued forbidding school districts from requiring face coverings, counter to recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatricians and the CDC.
Two Republican members of Congress from Kentucky – Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie – have steadfastly refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine, saying they have natural immunity because they had the viral infection.
But a new study from the CDC, based on data from people in Kentucky who contracted COVID-19 a second time, says the vaccine boosts immunity in people who have had the virus.
Unvaccinated people who contracted COVID-19 are more than twice as likely to become infected again than those who got vaccinated after contracting the virus, the study said.
The study shows “COVID-19 vaccines offer better protection than natural immunity alone and that vaccines, even after prior infection, help prevent reinfection,” the CDC said in a news release announcing the results. Read more here.
— Deborah Yetter, Louisville Courier Journal
As the delta variant of the coronavirus sweeps across the United States, a growing number of colleges and universities are requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for students to attend in-person classes. But the new mandate has opened the door for those opposed to getting the vaccine to cheat the system, according to interviews with students, education and law enforcement officials.
Both faculty and students at dozens of schools interviewed by The Associated Press say they are concerned about how easy it is to get fake vaccine cards. Across the internet, a cottage industry has sprung up to accommodate people who say they won’t get vaccinated for either personal or religious reasons.
An Instagram account with the username “vaccinationcards” sells laminated COVID-19 vaccination cards for $25 each. A user on the encrypted messaging app, Telegram, offers “COVID-19 Vaccine Cards Certificates,” for as much as $200 apiece.
A Reddit user commented on a thread about falsifying COVID-19 vaccination cards, saying, in part, “I need one, too, for college. I refuse to be a guinea pig.”
On Twitter, one user with more than 70,000 followers tweeted: “My daughter bought 2 fake ID’s online for $50 while in college. Shipped from China. Anyone have the link for vaccine cards?”
According to a tally by The Chronicle of Higher Education, at least 675 colleges and universities now require proof of COVID-19 inoculations. The process to confirm vaccination at many schools can be as simple as uploading a picture of the vaccine card to the student’s portal.
Contributing: Shelby Harris, Asheville Citizen Times; Arika Herron and MJ Slaby, Indianapolis Star; The Associated Press.