CEDARVILLE, Ohio — At a press briefing on Thursday to address the state's response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine issued new guidance for students participating in spring activities, including sports.
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According to DeWine, students who experience incidental exposure to COVID-19 in the classroom but are not required to quarantine and are not showing symptoms will still be permitted to participate in sports activities as long as they follow the appropriate sports guidance. In late December, DeWine announced that the state was no longer recommending that classmates of K-12 students who test positive for the coronavirus quarantine, so long as the students were wearing masks and only in the classroom with the positive student.
At the time, that recommendation -- which marked a departure from the CDC's guidance -- didn't apply to after-school activities, including sports.
"The good news is spring sports is outside, which makes things better. And we're also seeing better numbers," DeWine said on Thursday. "So we're announcing today that students are not required to quarantine because they've had incidental exposure to COVID in a classroom.
"Those kids who we've said for the past few months, if you're in a classroom and everyone's wearing a mask [and] they're exposed, they do not have to quarantine from school. But the order was that they would have to quarantine from extracurricular activities, from sports and other things. What we're saying today is no longer will they have to quarantine from those sports or those extracurricular activities."
You can watch Gov. DeWine's full press briefing from Thursday in the video player below.