Toward the end of October, Governor Ron DeSantis made this statement during a press conference:

“You should not be quarantining healthy students. If someone is symptomatic, by all means, isolate and have them stay home until they recover. But somebody that had just a glancing exposure in a hallway or something, to then say they’re out for two weeks when they’re perfectly healthy, is not I think the way to go.”

Up until this point, the quarantine period has been 14 days.

However, there is new guidance that suggests the viability of a 10-day quarantine period, with the possibility of a 7-day quarantine. The 7-day quarantine would be if a negative test result is received as a result of a test administered during the day 6 or 7 day timeframe.

“There is other guidance which accompanies these suggested changes, but the shortening of the period is what is grabbing headlines,” said Maddox in an email. “There is a review period in order for Department of Health to officially adopt the CDC guidelines which begins at the Surgeon General’s Office and is administered to the County Health Departments.”

For Okaloosa schools, the Department of Health has instructed that quarantine guidelines remain as they have been at this time.

“Revised CDC guidelines for quarantining were released recently,” wrote the Okaloosa County School District in a press release. “These guidelines have not yet been approved at the state level for implementation in Florida. The school district is working with the Department of Health and will notify you when we have updates.” 

We want to hear from the community!

We get messages on Facebook, or in response to our newsletter, that advocate both sides of the quarantine debate. Some are for it while others are against it.

And now I want to hear directly from you…anonymously.

We will report back on the results in a week or so….