Manatee County Board enacts plan to close classrooms with COVID outbreaks

MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. (WWSB) - The Manatee County School Board has set some conditions for classrooms with positive COVID cases. This will affect all levels but the board is especially concerned with students who are too young to get the vaccine.

If any classroom has more than two positive cases, the school will send the whole classroom home to quarantine for at least seven days. If after one week, the students have symptoms, they must remain home.

If only two students test positive, the school conducts contact tracing to identity those students who had direct contact with the positive cases. If another comes up positive, then the whole class will be quarantined.

Manatee County School Spokesperson Mike Barber told ABC7 that the issue was discussed during a board meeting last Tuesday and was enacted this week.

Between Tuesday and Friday of last week, six schools had to send at least one classroom home:

• Mills Elementary
• McNeal Elementary
• Rogers Garden-Bullock Elementary
• Williams Elementary
• Willis Elementary
• Tillman Elementary

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