Miami-Dade, Broward and Keys public school cases rise as COVID-19 surges in Florida

For the second week in a row, COVID-19 cases in Miami-Dade public schools have jumped by more than 100 over seven days, according to the school district’s online dashboard that tracks the virus.

Since students were allowed back to their classrooms on Oct. 5, the Florida Department of Health has confirmed 548 pupils and staff at the district’s 392 public schools have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to Friday’s dashboard numbers.

A week before, the case count was 438. The count for the previous week was 332.

The rising number of cases in the schools comes during a surge in cases in Florida and Miami-Dade County. On Friday, Florida added 6,933 new COVID-19 cases, the highest single-day case count since mid-August, excluding a Sept. 1 data dump by Quest Diagnostics, according to the Florida Department of Health.

Miami-Dade reported 1,876 new confirmed COVID cases on Friday, a 55 percent increase over Thursday’s 1,205 cases, the health department reported.

District officials did not return a request for comment on the new numbers.

The teachers union said it’s increasingly concerned about the rising cases, and it wants the district to develop a uniform protocol regarding when to temporarily close schools with COVID-positive students and staff so crews can conduct deep cleanings.

‘Getting worse,’ union leader says

“Things are getting worse, and no thresholds have been established despite the union demanding safety,” said Karla Hernandez-Mats, president of United Teachers of Dade.

The district has maintained since in-person learning resumed that it would base decisions to close schools on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration the number of confirmed cases among students and employees, how many people were potentially exposed to the virus and if there were a potential outbreak.

So far this year, only two schools — MAST Academy on Virginia Key and Coral Park Elementary School in Westchester — have been temporarily closed. Each closed for a day in October due to COVID cases.

The actual number of cases in the public school system is likely much higher than the dashboard reflects. The district has said the ledger is not an up-to-date measure of cases, as the Department of Health must confirm a self-reported case before it gets added to the official count, creating a lag.

Miami-Dade added its most cases on Nov. 2 and 3, when 42 people were logged on each of those days. Prior to that, Oct. 26 was a record day, with 38 cases added to the dashboard.

The schools with the highest confirmed cases, according to the dashboard, are Miami Senior High (15 cases), Coral Reef Senior High (12 cases) and Bob Graham K-8 Educational Center (11 cases).

Broward schools cases shoot up

Broward’s school district has seen an even larger spike in confirmed cases than Miami-Dade this week. While Dade updates its dashboard daily, Broward does so every Tuesday and Friday. According to Friday’s numbers, nearly 200 cases were added to the dashboard this week. There were 249 cases last Friday, and 448 on Friday.

In the Florida Keys, where officials became concerned earlier this week when the percent positivity rate — the percent of all COVID tests performed that come back positive — rose to more than 16%, cases in Monroe County schools have also increased, according to Friday’s numbers.

Last Friday, Monroe’s confirmed case count was 23 students, three teachers and two non-teaching staff members. On Friday, the count was 37 students, four teachers and five non-teaching staff.