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There are hundreds of stories like the following tragedy as the death toll climbs toward 25,000 and the number of Coronavirus cases nears 600,000, both stats the highest in the world with few signs that these numbers won't double, probably triple, perhaps quadruple before the Grim Reaper has collected his quota of corpses in his pursuit of death.

The BISD as well as the other Brownsville charter and private schools know that the threat of this pandemic won't cease until, at best, this summer. Does the press need to document cases locally like the heart-rending article that The Murphy Report features?

The school year is over. There may be minutes ticking on the clock, but the result is a foregone conclusion. We are well into the fourth quarter. There will be no comeback. We need to be safe and not sorry. This is no time for rash decisions when lives are at stake. Would the school district's trustees or the administrators for the charter and private schools sleep well at night if an employee or a student died from this modern plague after they had chosen to resume classes? 

Trump doesn't give a shit; he is a half-wit. We are different in South Texas; in the struggle to save our own, we are not indifferent.

It is time to fold. Nobody is holding a winning hand. There is no gamble worth the risk. We don't have the odds on our side. Let families concentrate on keeping their loved ones well. This is the year that all students pass. It's not worth allowing an arbitrary decision to give a sense of normalcy that will result in their passing to the other side when we know that COVID will stalk victims for at least two more months. 

Brownsville and the Rio Grande Valley are a designated hot spot. Read this story and ask our leaders if they want to be responsible to contributing to a similar outcome as this poor woman is suffering and from which she will never recover for the rest of her life. We aren't interested in the bureaucratic bullshit. We have seen the light. It's time for those in power to do what's right.

End the school year or employees and students will die!!! It's that simple. The decision should be that simple. Here is the report from the Detroit News:

The father, 59-year-old Freddie Lee Brown Jr., a retiree, died on March 26. The son Freddie Lee Brown III, a college student, died March 29.

Sandy Brown held a small visitation Friday for her husband and son with mourners standing outside their cars, adhering to social distancing, according to reports.

“My two men are gone. I am standing here in the strength of the Lord, not no strength of my own," Brown said, as WWMT-TV reported.

She gave her men a purple teddy bear and dressed them in their Sunday best, the station reported. A Michigan State jersey draped the casket of her son, a football fanatic.

They died at Ascension Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc, southeast of Flint.

Brown’s husband, who had a kidney transplant, fell ill and then went to the hospital after having trouble breathing, the Detroit News reported. He tested positive for COVID-19 and wound up on a ventilator, the report said.

The day after his death, Brown’s son, who had asthma, got sick. His condition reportedly improved but then worsened before he died.

“There’s not even a word created to describe my pain. It’s unimaginable,” Sandy Brown said.

“In three days, I lost my husband and son to an ugly plague. I watched my son go from completely well and whole and happy to being gone in three days."

As of Saturday, the number of Coronavirus deaths in Michigan stood at over 1,300. State health officials said nearly 24,000 people have tested positive.