School Apologizes for COVID-Oblivious Football Celebration After Photos Draw Scathing Responses

An Oklahoma school district provided an apology Sunday after facing scathing reaction for publishing a photo of a football event revealing trainees and professional athletes neither using masks nor social distancing. There were too numerous high school trainees without masks and too lots of high school trainees in close contact with one another,” Jenks Public Schools wrote in a Facebook post.

The apology provided on Sunday comes a day after the school’s Facebook page showed a picture of trainees and athletes celebrating a current victory, relatively unconcerned to mitigation efforts versus the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The post on Saturday included 4 images showing players, coaches, staff, cheerleaders and trainees crowded together on the field and in the stands, with very couple of masks in sight.

After publishing the picture on Saturday, the school dealt with severe backlash, with lots of members of the community slamming the school for allowing the celebration to go on amid increasing cases, deaths and hospitalizations related to COVID-19

” Exceptionally selfish,” one Facebook user composed, while another comment read, “Their health care employees are overwhelmed, exhausted and some passing away, however let’s fill the stadium for a super-spreader video game!

An Oklahoma school district said sorry Sunday for a COVID-oblivious football event after pictures it posted online drew scathing reactions. Here, an empty classroom is seen on August 13 in California.
Rodin Eckenroth/Getty

While talking to the Daily Monster, Elise Ramsey, a 22- year-old alum of Jenks High School and a present student at the University of Tulsa, said, “Health experts have actually been openly asking the community to do whatever we can to slow spread for several weeks now,” including that she was “frightened” by the post.

Jenks Public Schools directed Newsweek to the apology provided on Sunday and said it had no additional comment at this time.

According to the health department of Tulsa County, where Jenks is located, there are presently more than 36,000 confirmed COVID cases, along with at least 289 deaths, in the county. Oklahoma does not have a statewide mask mandate in location, but numerous counties, including Tulsa, have actually imposed citywide mask mandates in the middle of the continuous pandemic.

Newsweek reached out to the health department for remark however did not get a response in time for publication.

COVID cases and deaths have actually continued to increase throughout Oklahoma. Information from the state’s health department shows more than 218,000 validated cases and a minimum of 1,911 deaths.