ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — When it comes to quarantining students who appear to be healthy after coming into contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, parents can no longer expect their students to be pulled out of school automatically. They now have the option to quarantine them at home or keep them in school, and it’s a decision many parents will potentially have to make in the very near future.

The situation — prompted by new school COVID-19 rules from the Florida surgeon general — is one Orange County’s medical director doesn’t exactly agree with.

“I would prefer kids that have been exposed to stay home," Orange County Medical Director Dr. Christian Zuver said. “I think we have many cases of asymptomatic COVID infections and the risk of transmission is still there.”

In the spring of 2020, eighth grader Stefan Diercks was called to the principals office.

“I was in class and they called me up to the front office,” he said. “Then I was going home without any reason why — my mom told me that my friend had COVID and then I had to get tested because I was exposed.”

Diercks immediately went to get tested that day, and at the time he was showing no symptoms for coronavirus. A rapid COVID-19 test showed Diercks was infected, though, even though he didn't have any symptoms.

According to new research by the JAMA Network, regular COVID-19 testing in schools does catch cases that are missed when testing is only conducted on people who display symptoms.

The findings published this week says researchers found that conventional COVID-19 reporting mechanisms can fail to identify up to nine in 10 cases among students.

Zuver uses Diercks' situation as an example as to why students who have had close contact with someone infected with COVID-19 shouldn't be in school, even if they're not showing symptoms.

Diercks, who felt fine the morning he got called to the office, said that even though he felt fine, he wouldn’t want to endanger any of his friends, teachers, parents or even his younger brother.

“If I had COVID and didn’t have any symptoms, I still have it,” Diercks said. “I just don’t have symptoms so I can still pass it on to other people so other people can get symptoms and thats not good.”

And this type of case is one Zuver said could cause an outbreak in Orange County, which is why he would recommend students quarantine to play it safe.

“I think when we are looking at population health as a whole, I think its safer," he said.

Spectrum News 13 asked Orange County Public Schools officials if they had any data that showed how many students who were sent home to quarantine due to contact tracing ended up testing positive for COVID. According to an OCPS spokesperson, that is not something they track.

Spectrum News 13 also asked the Florida Department of Health the same question, but they did not respond before this story was published.