Orange County Public Schools more than doubled their daily record for COVID-19 cases among students on Monday. 238 new cases of coronavirus were reported among the county’s public school students on Monday which shattered the former single-day record of 97 cases set on Friday.
All told the school district has had 898 confirmed cases of coronavirus among students and faculty since August 2. 552 students and employees are currently in quarantine due to exposure to someone who has tested positive for coronavirus.
These numbers are likely to increase as the school year continues and we move closer to the 14-day mark from the first day of school. The number of confirmed cases will likely rise with the implementation of on-site testing at several county schools. OCPS will test family, students and faculty at select area schools in the evening during the week. On weekends they will run all-day testing sites at select elementary schools.
OCPS opened with a recommendation that students wear masks and noted that many chose to on the school’s first day. All school districts in Florida are barred from mandating masks for students via an executive order from Gov. Ron DeSantis. In spite of this, several districts have imposed mask mandates, essentially daring Tallahassee to punish them by stripping funding. President Joe Biden’s administration has promised to provide for any district whose funding is interrupted by the state government.Orange County School Board members are floating the idea of a mask mandate, according to a report from the Orlando Sentinel.
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This article appears in Aug 11-17, 2021.