Health

DeSantis: Healthy students should not have to quarantine if classmates test positive for COVID-19

Gov. Ron DeSantis said healthy students should not have to go home to quarantine because classmates tested positive for COVID-19.

DeSantis also said school closures cause catastrophic damage to the physical, mental and social wellbeing of young people.

READ: Florida reports 84 more deaths, 3,600 new coronavirus cases as surge continues

While touring a school with education commissioner Richard Corcoran on Tuesday, DeSantis talked about how well schools across the state have been doing with in-person face-to-face learning despite the pandemic.

But one area he said needs improvement is how schools deal with quarantining students who come into contact with other students who test positive.

READ: Positivity rate in Orange County on the rise, officials say

“If someone is symptomatic, by all means isolate and have them stay home until they recover,” DeSantis said. “But someone who has had a glancing exposure in a hall way or something, then to say they are out for two weeks when they’re perfectly healthy is not, I think, the way to go.”

DeSantis recently announced the state will be buying millions of rapid tests and that some of them will be sent to school districts.

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Myrt Price

Myrt Price, WFTV.com

Myrt Price joined the eyewitness news team as a general assignment reporter in October of 2012.

Adam Poulisse, WFTV.com

Adam Poulisse joined WFTV in November 2019.