Florida extends mandate ban to include ‘institutionalized quaratining’ of K-12 students

The Center Square
By John Haughey
September 24, 2021

In this Monday, Aug. 23, 2021, file photo, student Winston Wallace, 9, raises his hand in class at iPrep Academy on the first day of school in Miami. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File

(The Center Square) – The DeSantis administration has opened a new front in its campaign against public health mandates, expanding bans against universal mask and vaccine policies into a new prohibitory realm – “institutionalized quarantining.”

On his second day as Florida Department of Health (FDOH) Secretary and Surgeon General, Dr. Joe Lapado joined Gov. Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to announce new FDOH protocols applicable to school districts.

The new rules reiterate the previous policy that parents have sole discretion whether their children wear masks in school but also accords sole discretion to parents in choosing to quarantine their children after an exposure to COVID-19.

“Basically there is no high quality data about benefits” of quarantining students, Lapado said Wednesday. “We’re about 18 months into this pandemic and there is not a single high-quality study that shows that any child has ever benefited from that policy.”

While benefits of quarantining students are difficult to assess, “We actually do have good data about the costs,” he said. “There have been several studies that show that kids taken out of school, it’s extremely harmful. It’s too bad we needed a study to know that. But it’s great the studies agree with what I think most parents would have known without the study.”

“Quarantining healthy students is incredibly damaging for their educational advancement,” DeSantis said. “It’s also disruptive for families. We are going to be following a symptoms-based approach.”

The revised protocols eliminate a previous standard that required students quarantine for at least four days off campus if exposed to someone who tested positive.

Students who have been exposed, but are asymptomatic, can now go to school “without restrictions or disparate treatment” under the new guidelines.

The protocols retain previous guidelines for students who test positive. They still either quarantine for 10 days, receive a negative test and be asymptomatic before returning to campus.

The new protocols discard Rule 64DER21-12, which authorized FDOH to issue rules governing “the control of preventable communicable diseases” in schools.

Under that rule, the state’s Department of Education was enforcing DeSantis’ executive order and Board of Education orders banning school boards from adopting universal mask mandates.

The Alachua, Broward, Leon and Miami-Dade and Orange county school districts sought an administrative hearing to challenge Rule 64DER21-12. But, because it was repealed, an administrative law judge Wednesday dismissed their case.

“Essentially, the state is responding to the legal challenges of its rules by repealing them and creating new ones, with limited public notice,” Alachua County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Carlee Simon said in a statement, calling the new protocols “disingenuous.”

The replacement rule retains the same policy — schools can require masks if parents can opt children out — but with revised language that stipulates compliance is “at the parent or legal guardian’s sole discretion.”

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), people who get infected can spread the virus starting from two days before they have any symptoms.

The CDC recommends students quarantine 14 days if unvaccinated. They can shorten the quarantine to seven days by testing negative, the CDC recommends.

That approach is too unwieldly, DeSantis said, touting the new “symptoms-based approach.”

“If someone is symptomatic, of course they stay at home,” he said. “If there is a close contact but someone has not developed any symptoms, you monitor them. You notify a parent. The parent always has the right to make their kids stay home, if they think that is in the best interest of the student and the family, 100% we would not want to intrude upon that.”

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Robert Warner
Robert Warner (@guest_62604)
2 years ago

We now have reckless disregard for science based, competent health, welfare, and public safety regulation. Perhaps wilful blindness. From the top down, in Florida. Incredible.

Charles Loouk
Trusted Member
Charles Loouk(@charles-loouk)
2 years ago
Reply to  Robert Warner

You have to go higher than Florida. It is worldwide disregard at this point.

Robert Warner
Robert Warner (@guest_62613)
2 years ago
Reply to  Charles Loouk

Worldwide disregard of what? Sound science? Florida is ground zero for Floridians and our Florida kids. DeSantis own’s this.

Mark Tomes
Trusted Member
Mark Tomes(@mtomes)
2 years ago

There are many, high-quality, science-based studies that show that wearing masks iand quarantining until symptoms can be measured are not harmful to children. What is harmful is the negative reaction that parents have and pass on to their children regarding their views about mask wearing and quarantining. When a community is on board and working to get rid of the virus together, it passes much more quickly. When politicians such as DeSantis turn it into an opinion fest, the virus spreads and kills many more people.

Charles Loouk
Trusted Member
Charles Loouk(@charles-loouk)
2 years ago
Reply to  Mark Tomes

People can say a lot of things that sound nice, look good, or seem official. When you say high quality, science-based, do you mean something that is peer reviewed? Something that had a sufficient sample size? Something with a reasonable control group? These are all basics that seem to have been lost since March 2020 for what is considered as an actual quality study.

Karelyn. Lotz
Karelyn. Lotz (@guest_62614)
2 years ago

CRAZY!!!!!

Franklin Michael
Franklin Michael (@guest_62620)
2 years ago

Parents are held accountable if they neglect theirs kids in every day life. So if a parent shows up at school board meetings and disrupts it over protective measures then their kid catches the virus and dies they should be charged with negligent homicide.