Janelle Irwin Taylor
Hillsborough County School Board member Tamara Shamburger disclosed Friday she tested positive for COVID-19.
“I’m sad to share the news that I have tested positive for COVID-19. The numbers are rising in Hillsborough. Please take precautions. This is still a very real threat to our community. Please follow the Mayor’s executive order on masks that goes into effect today at 5pm. Stay home if you can,” she wrote on Facebook, referencing Tampa Mayor Jane Castor’s order requiring face masks in public.
Shamburger will attend school board meetings remotely while she self-slates at home. Shamburger told the Tampa Bay Times her symptoms are mild.
She got tested for the virus after learning someone she had been in close proximity to had later tested positive for the virus.
The experience, she told the Times, has shifted her perspective on reopening schools in August.
“I am genuinely concerned about reopening, what it’s going to look like and how we are going to protect teachers and staff and students and families,” she said. “It gives me great pause, now that I know I was a COVID survivor. Listen, I wouldn’t put myself in that situation again. And I wouldn’t want that for plenty of teachers who have underlying health issues.”
Earlier in the week, Tampa City Council member Guido Maniscalco disclosed that city “employees” had tested positive, prompting him to cancel meetings. Maniscalco didn’t say who or from what department the affected employees were, but sources with knowledge of the situation said a City Council member might have been infected.
The city cannot comment on employees’ health issues and was unable to confirm details about the outbreak.
