2 Days Into The School Year, A Florida District Asked 440 Students To Quarantine
Source: NPR
Palm Beach County, Fla., has asked 440 students to quarantine just two days into the school year, after 51 students and faculty had confirmed cases on COVID-19.
The School District of Palm Beach County, the 10th largest school district in the country, teaches an estimated 197,000 students, according to the district's website. While students and staff are required to wear masks in the district, Interim School District Superintendent Michael Burke said in an interview with MSNBC that 5,700 Palm Beach students have opted out, per an order from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that allows parents to give permission to their children to do so.
Burke blamed the opt-out rule as the reason for the spike in cases, calling on DeSantis to make changes to protect students from infection.
"The governor has got to take responsibility for establishing the ground rules we're operating under," Burke said. "This ability for families to opt out is leading to more cases, which will ultimately send more kids home and deprive them of that traditional classroom experience."
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2021/08/12/1027222426/palm-beach-florida-school-district-440-students-quarantine-covid
= new reply since forum marked as read
A friend is a grade school teacher and said this cartoon is exactly what she is expecting.
(Fortunately for her, she’s on maternity leave. Baby is due any day now...)
that went into school quarantines (but then the article mentions a larger school system in Savannah that also had to quarantine) -
By JEFF AMY August 11, 2021
ATLANTA (AP) — Four tiny Georgia public school districts have temporarily shut down in-person instruction within days of starting school, saying high COVID-19 case counts among students and staff makes it unsafe to continue. Other districts have closed individual schools or sent hundreds of students into quarantine after exposure to people with COVID-19. The 1,100-student Macon County district on Wednesday became the fourth district to suspend in-person classes, following the smaller Taliaferro, Glascock and Talbot counties in recent days. The four districts combined serve a fraction of 1% of Georgia’s 1.7 million students.
“The difference now in this outbreak that we see than the outbreak that happened last school year is that this seems to be more centered on kids, rather than adults, so that scares me to death,” Talbot County Superintendent Jack Catrett told WTVM-TV. The moves show the difficulty of keeping schools open as COVID-19 surges across Georgia, despite the determination of local school leaders to focus on in-person classes this year. Clayton County stopped in-person instruction at an elementary school because of COVID-19. In the Savannah-Chatham district, 230 of the district’s 36,000 students have tested positive, while more than 1,100 students have been quarantined because of exposure.
Of roughly 5,000 employees, 36 have tested positive and another 72 are quarantined. Sumter County quarantined unvaccinated high school football players. Catrett said it was necessary to close the entire district because all grades share the same building in the 500-student district. Talbot students are relying on paper packets to work remotely, while other districts have issued computers for students to take home. “It’s terrible not to have them here. When you walk through our halls it’s sad, there’s no children,” Catrett told WRBL-TV. The district is supposed to return to in-person classes on Monday, but Catrett said the closure could be extended based on contact tracing.
Larger districts, though, are determined to keep teaching in person. “We worked really hard to get to five days a week and that’s what we’re going to stay,” Savannah-Chatham Superintendent Ann Levett told WTOC-TV, adding that “we’re not going to do that at the risk of detriment to health and safety.” Georgia’s case count continues to rise, with the seven-day rolling average climbing above 5,600 on Wednesday, the worst since Feb. 1. The number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals is also rising rapidly, exceeding 3,800 on Wednesday even as many hospital executives warn they don’t have enough beds and staff to care for surging patients loads.
https://apnews.com/article/health-education-georgia-coronavirus-pandemic-cb8ce8cfeb8a705b70d9073bd5383e9a
It's literally like if they don't "see" the viral particles, then they don't exist.
I have cousins and an aunt who are living in the metro Atlanta area and I know it's a mess down there. 
