2 Chicago moms die of COVID after outbreaks in their kids' classrooms
CHICAGO - Two mothers of Chicago Public School students have died of COVID-19 in the past week.
The students attend Jensen Elementary in the East Garfield Park neighborhood.
"Why should we have to put up with this nonsense and keep repeating ourselves over and over until the last one of us pass away?," said Shauntee Colsen, father of a 7th grader. "This is something I cannot take. I can't expect my daughter to go to school and get sick and give it to the rest of her family."
The local school council says a 47-year-old mom died on Thursday and a 32-year-old mom passed on Friday. Both moms had children who were being quarantined because of COVID outbreaks in their classrooms.
"This is devastating," said Chanella Bland, president of the Local School Council. "We stand here as one demanding weekly COVID testing. We all stand here demanding deep cleaning every day."
"Rapid testing, deep cleaning. These are our kids, our teachers, our staff. We are demanding a shutdown. We are going to continue to keep moving as one until we get some kind of action," said parent and LSC member Jermaine Thomas.
The school council says that eleven of the 17 classrooms at Jensen were under quarantine last week, and that they want CPS to do a better job with COVID safety.
Chicago's current daily COVID case rate is at 13.6, down from 15.3 last week while Illinois is at 18.2, health officials said Tuesday. The state was at 22.4 two weeks ago.