ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Dr. Michael Keating, chief medical officer at AdventHealth for Children, explained Thursday how COVID-19 is now impacting younger people more than before.
He said the risk is increasing for many reasons.
“What you have, college frat parties, open bars, rallies, football games where people appear to be pretty tightly packed and everybody has their masks below their nose, I mean, it’s just a bad message,” Keating said.
Keating explained that even though younger people have a more robust immune system, they should still wear a mask to avoid a spread.
“The problem with covid is that you can be infected and not be symptomatic, so you can be as a symptom-free vector walking around, essentially covid radioactive and putting people at risk,” Keating said.
On Wednesday, Orange County Public Schools announced the temporary shutdown of Timber Creek High School after reporting 14 positive cases.
Earlier this week, Gov. Ron DeSantis said that school closures should not happen and that only symptomatic students should stay at home.
“So someone is symptomatic, by all means, you know isolate and have them stay at home till 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,” DeSantis said.
According to OCPS, students and staff should be able to return to campus on November 5th.