A private school in Florida is requiring students who receive a Covid-19 vaccine to quarantine at home for 30 days after each dose of the vaccine. In an effort to limit students’ absences, the school has urged parents and guardians to hold off on getting their child vaccinated until summer, when the school year has ended. Earlier this year, the school made national news after it announced it would not employ teachers who were vaccinated against Covid-19.
In a letter sent home to parents and obtained by WSVN, Centner Academy in Miami said it would require all vaccinated students to stay home for 30 days following the administration of each of the vaccine’s two doses. In its letter, the school appeared to wrongfully imply a vaccinated student could somehow “impact” the health and well-being of those around them.
“Because of the potential impact on other students and our school community, vaccinated students will need to stay at home for 30 days post-vaccination for each dose and booster they receive and may return to school after 30 days as long as the student is healthy and symptom-free,” WSVN reported the letter read.
In addition, the school urged parents who were planning or considering vaccinating their children against Covid-19 to put off obtaining the vaccine for at least six months. “If you are considering the vaccine for your Centner Academy student(s), we ask that you hold off until the Summer when there will be time for the potential transmission or shedding onto others to decrease,” WSVN reported the school’s letter to parents read.
In a statement to CNN, Centner Academy co-founder David Centner claimed the school was not attempting to weigh in on whether or not a vaccinated person can affect others — a theory not supported by research conducted by either the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the World Health Organization (WHO), or the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — with its policy. Instead, Centner characterized the policy as a “prudent precautionary measure.”
“To be clear, the school leadership does not believe that one who is vaccinated can infect another person with Covid,” Centner told CNN. “Further, the school is not opining on whether a vaccinated person can negatively impact others. However, due to voluminous anecdotal reports in circulation on this latter topic, we must err on the side of caution when making decisions that may impact the health of the school community.”
Centner told the cable news outlet the school would likely not repeal its new quarantine policy until there were “definitive and scientifically proven studies that refute these reports.”
The CDC has maintained that Covid-19 vaccines are safe and the best way to protect oneself from severe illness or death caused by the virus. “Covid-19 vaccines were evaluated in tens of thousands of participants in clinical trials,” the CDC has said on its website. “The vaccines met the FDA’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality needed to support approval or authorization of a vaccine.”
Additionally, the CDC has sought to debunk such myths, noting that “none of the vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. contain a live virus,” making shedding, or the release of vaccine components in or outside the body, impossible. The CDC has also moved to debunk claims that vaccinated individuals can impact the menstrual cycles of unvaccinated people.
In April, Centner Academy announced it would not employ teachers who were vaccinated against Covid-19. Following backlash, the school later clarified to WSVN that vaccinated teachers would not be fired but rather moved into roles where they did not have contact with students.
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