Palm Beach County

Masking up against COVID-19 is now optional for students in Palm Beach County. The move is happening a week earlier than planned.

Bud Howard, the Loxahatchee River Environmental Control District's director of information services, says scientists anticipated a signifiant amount of traces of the virus in the sewage system.

Now that the FDA has fully approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19, some health care experts hope to see more vaccine mandates and more people getting their shots.

Miami-Dade, Hillsborough and Palm Beach remove parental opt-outs in defiance of the governor as President Biden calls for legal action against states that block health measures to protect students.

With the help of a West Palm Beach nonprofit, this teen made it through the pandemic and his high school career.

Opponents of the mask mandate went to the state's high court in February after a panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal rejected their arguments.

Although the state has banned local governments from requiring people to wear masks, cases involving such mandates in Alachua and Palm Beach counties are still going through the courts.

The lawsuit claims the district has deprived children of educational opportunities and inflicted unnecessary trauma by forcing them into mental health centers over unthreatening behavioral incidents.

The order now exempts vaccinated people from having to wear a mask outdoors "except in certain crowded settings and venues where there is a decreased ability to maintain physical distance."

The co-founder of the nonprofit says unemployment, social distancing and isolation make life more difficult for many drug users, although the reasons for using can be far more complex.