Seventeen employees of Florida’s Polk County Public Schools have died from COVID-19 since the school year began on August 10, a district spokesperson confirmed to CBS News.
Five of those who have died were sick before the school year began and had not returned to campus to work this school year, Jason Geary, director of communications for Polk County Public Schools said. Twelve employees, however, were “actively working” before they became ill.
While the district does have a list of known COVID-related deaths, the information is confidential, and Geary said that it can be “difficult and perhaps impossible” to determine how and where transmission occurred in areas with high community spread.
