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50 NYC Department of Education staffers have died from coronavirus
Fifty city school employees have died from the coronavirus, the Department of Education said Monday.
The DOE released the grim tally after weeks of pressure from the United Federation of Teachers and others to publicly release the number of COVID-19 fatalities in the school system.
The current total includes 21 teachers, 22 para-professionals, two administrators, a guidance counselor, a food-service worker and two central-office employees, the DOE said.
The DOE, which said it will update the school system’s death count each week, also reported the coronavirus-related passing of a staffer at a city “enrichment center” for children of essential workers and select other groups.
“This is painful news for too many of our communities — each number represents a life, a member of one our schools or offices, and the pain their loved ones are experiencing is unimaginable,” said schools Chancellor Richard Carranza in a statement.
The DOE noted that not all of the fatalities have been officially confirmed as coronavirus-related by the city Department of Health but that the cases had been reported by the victims’ families.
Critics have accused the DOE of not being transparent about coronavirus infections and deaths in the nation’s largest school system.
Carranza had previously told administrators to refrain from alerting the city Department of Health about suspected cases and to let that agency independently confirm positive cases.
But teachers raged against that position, arguing that administrators failed to alert parents and other staffers about specific cases in a timely or clear manner.
They asserted that the DOE’s reliance on the DOH to confirm cases delayed the closure of potentially infected sites and exposed staffers to heightened risk.
The DOE said Monday that the sources of infections for those listed in the death tally are impossible to discern given the contagion’s current near-omnipresence.
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