On Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the state had issued a revised rule that takes a “symptom-based strategy” to quarantine students. This means that asymptomatic children who have been exposed to the Covid-19 in a classroom setting may be allowed to return to school if their parents so choose. 

Florida Students Exposed To Covid Can Attend The School

“Of course, if someone is experiencing symptoms, they should remain at home. “If there’s a close touch, but no symptoms have shown themselves, you watch them and inform the parent,” DeSantis said. “If a parent believes that keeping their children at home is in the best interests of the pupil and the family, we would not interfere with that decision.” A parent, on the other hand, has the right to send their healthy kid to school,” says the author.

Florida Students Exposed To Covid Can Attend The School Under New Rule

Deputy Attorney General Ron DeSantis said that the new policy acknowledges that quarantining healthy kids is “extremely detrimental” to children’s scholastic progress and disruptive to their family’s lives.

“It’s also essential to respect the rights of parents, as the governor said,” Florida new state surgeon general Dr. Joe Ladapo, also the secretary of the Department of Health, stated.

Those in favor of Covid-19 prevention measures, like mask mandates and further quarantining, have criticized the decision, saying it would encourage the spread of the virus. “In reality, the state is redoubling its efforts to implement rules that may end up putting kids, faculty, and the whole community at greater danger.”

Schools in certain states have had difficulty reconciling Covid-19 prevention with different statewide orders as a result of the distribution of the Delta version, which has resulted in an increase in cases as the new school year has begun in various areas. Among the counties in Florida whose education systems have come under criticism from Gov. Ron DeSantis is Alachua County, which has defied the state’s prohibition on mask requirements.

According to the findings of the study, asymptomatic patients may be overlooked. For children who have been exposed to the virus, a new study has shown that routine Covid-19 screening of all staff and students in schools may detect positive cases that diagnostic testing may have missed before.

According to a study published In the journal, traditional reporting systems may overlook as many as nine out of ten instances among students and seven out of ten cases among staff.

The research included students and employees from 3 schools in Omaha, Nebraska, who took part in a weekly PCR-tests program between November 9 and December 11 last year to gather data. Over the course of the trial, approximately 2,900 self-collected saliva specimens from 458 members of the research team and 315 students who were not experiencing any symptoms were examined.

The case rate among students in the weekly test program was 7 percent, and the case rate among staff was 5.3 percent, compared to 1.2 percent among pupils and 2.1 percent among staff who used traditional reporting methods. The number of cases discovered even outstripped the rates of infection reported at the provincial level.

According to the researchers, the disparities between the rates of community cases and those among staff and students participating in the weekly testing program indicate that the approach may be effective in reducing school-based transmission risk.