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Florida

Florida makes quarantine optional for exposed students

Ron Desantis has named Dr. Joseph Ladapo as Florida's next surgeon general

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A day after assuming his job, Florida's newly appointed surgeon general on Wednesday signed new rules allowing parents to decide whether their children should quarantine or stay in school after being exposed to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.

The guidelines signed by Dr. Joseph Ladapo eliminate previous rules requiring students to quarantine for at least four days off campus if they've been exposed. Under the new rules, students who have been exposed can continue attending classes in person "without restrictions or disparate treatment," provided they are asymptomatic. They can also quarantine, but no longer than seven days, provided they do not get sick.

"Quarantining healthy students is incredibly damaging for their educational advancement," Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday at a news conference in Kissimmee. "It’s also disruptive for families. We are going to be following a symptoms-based approach."

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the opening of a monoclonal antibody site Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021, in Pembroke Pines, Fla. The site at C. B. Smith Park will offer monoclonal antibody treatment sold by Regeneron to people who have tested positive for COVID-19. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the opening of a monoclonal antibody site Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021, in Pembroke Pines, Fla. The site at C. B. Smith Park will offer monoclonal antibody treatment sold by Regeneron to people who have tested positive for COVID-19.  (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

GOV. WHITMER AGREES: NO MASK MANDATES IN SCHOOLS AND NO VACCINE PASSPORTS IN MICHIGAN

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people who get infected can spread the virus starting from two days before they have any symptoms. The CDC recommends students should quarantine for 14 days if they are unvaccinated. They can shorten the quarantine to seven days by testing negative, according to the CDC.

DeSantis named Ladapo to the job Tuesday.

Unchanged from the earlier rules are requirements that students with the virus either quarantine for 10 days, receive a negative test and be asymptomatic or offer a doctor's note granting permission.

Also unchanged from the previous guidelines are rules allowing schools to adopt mask mandates as long as students can opt out. School officials in Alachua, Broward, Leon, Miami-Dade and Orange counties recently challenged that rule prohibiting mask mandates, but the Florida Department of Health on Wednesday said in a court filing that the challenge should be dismissed since the old rules are now moot.

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Alachua County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Carlee Simon called the Department of Health rule changes "disingenuous."

"Essentially, the state is responding to the legal challenges of its rules by repealing them and creating new ones with limited public notice," Simon said in a statement.