Photo: Getty Images North America
Leon County Circuit Court Judge John Cooper will allow the lawsuit challenging the state’s school mask policy, mandating parental opt-outs for children, to be heard. The determination was made in Thursday’s hearing. The case will be picked up Monday, meaning all school districts who’ve defied the Florida Board of Education’s mandate will be in session prior to a determination being made.
In other news, we saw an improvement with COVID-19 cases on Thursday. According to the Florida Department of Health, there were 15,402 new COVID-19 cases. That’s a decline of greater than 10,000 cases over the prior Thursday and has brought the weekly trend for cases down to 20,382. However, Florida did set a new high for COVID-19 related hospitalizations. According to federal reporting, 17,096 people were hospitalized on Thursday. That’s a net increase of over 300 over the prior day.
Continuing the good news on the employment front in Florida. For the second consecutive week, unemployment filings in Florida were the lowest since February 2020. That was the last month before the impact of the pandemic in Florida which featured record low unemployment statewide.