Experts are split on whether CDC mask guidance for vaccinated students is safest move
In a move based on “current scientific evidence and lessons learned,” federal health officials said Friday that students, teachers and staff who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 do not have to wear masks indoors during the upcoming school year.
Those who are not fully vaccinated, including children younger than 12 years old who are not yet eligible to get a shot, should continue to wear masks inside, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended.
Masks are generally not recommended while outdoors, regardless of vaccination status, however unvaccinated people should consider wearing one in crowded settings or during close contact activities.
The guidance is “meant to supplement — not replace — any federal, state, local, territorial, or tribal health and safety laws, rules and regulations with which schools must comply,” the CDC noted. This means face coverings are still required on public transportation, such as buses, and final decisions on masks will fall to local leaders.
However, health experts and educators alike are split on whether the move is the safest option at this stage of the pandemic. Highly contagious coronavirus variants continue to spread across the nation, mostly infecting younger, unvaccinated people.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, told the Associated Press the updated guidance is “an important roadmap for reducing the risk of COVID-19 in schools.”
“Schools should be consistently and rigorously employing all the recommended mitigation strategies, including requiring masks in all settings where there are unvaccinated individuals present, and ensuring adequate ventilation, handwashing, and cleaning.”
The CDC also emphasized “layered prevention strategies,” especially in cases where the recommended 3-foot distance between students and teachers is difficult to maintain, or in schools with a mixture of kids who may or may not be eligible for COVID-19 vaccination.
“Science completely supports that,” Mark Williams, dean of the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, told NBC News. “The vaccines are very effective in preventing infections, and if there is a breakthrough infection, it would not result in serious illness or hospitalization.”
More than 4 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 as of July 1 since the pandemic began, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The CDC guidance doesn’t mention how school teachers should determine which students are vaccinated; it also doesn’t recommend that schools require the shots for those who are eligible, like it does for vaccines of other diseases.
“This isn’t going to help the cause for the school districts that are trying to use the CDC as a marker for defending mask policies,” Dr. Natasha Burgert, a pediatrician in Missouri and a national spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told NBC News.
Elizabeth Stuart, a public health professor at John Hopkins University told the AP “it would be a very weird dynamic, socially, to have some kids wearing masks and some not. And tracking that? Teachers shouldn’t need to be keeping track of which kids should have masks on.”
New York public elementary school teacher Sarah Allen expressed her concerns on Twitter.
“New [CDC] school covid guidance, for whatever it’s worth, doesn’t provide safety to many students and staff in many schools across the country. It’s important to remember that in many places, politics, not science, guide actual school safety decisions,” Allen tweeted Friday.
“Whatever the CDC recommends, including schools in Texas and Iowa won’t have any mask mandates, including among unvaccinated staff and students,” she added. “Many places haven’t made improvements to school ventilation in decades and have no intention of starting now. No matter what the CDC says, the priority on being open far supersedes being open safely. Many schools will continue to be unsafe next year.”
Other experts are on the fence.
“For the first time, I really think they hit it on the nose. I think it’s science-based and right on the mark,” Dr. Benjamin Linas, an infectious disease specialist at Boston University, told The New York Times.
But Linas said he doesn’t want to send his own 11-year-old to school without a mask yet because of the delta coronavirus variant, which is more contagious and appears to cause more severe disease than other versions.
“Even if she’s not going to get severe Covid from delta, I’m not ready to take that risk.”
This story was originally published July 9, 2021 at 10:27 AM with the headline "Experts are split on whether CDC mask guidance for vaccinated students is safest move."
