In Debate On Lifting Mask Mandates In School, Health And Safety Still Matters Most

Even while school districts in states across the country vary on their stance about lifting mask mandates, keeping them intact, or offering optional mask wearing in schools, purchasing kids’ masks remains a top-seller with COVID-19 still lingering.

To lift in-school face mask wearing mandates or not to lift in-school face mask wearing mandates: that is the question. 

Depending which State you reside in or your child’s school district policy during the Coronavirus pandemic, the prevailing debate is a hot topic of conversation with beliefs varying across the United States on whether to allow students to attend class maskless or to continue the 2021-22 school year by having students mask-up at school. While CDC continues to recommend that schools remain open for in-person instruction and that all students, staff, teachers and visitors wear masks, regardless of their vaccination status, it’s clear that COVID-19 is still circulating throughout communities and poses a risk of serious illness, particularly for those who are unvaccinated.

In Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, and Oregon, health departments recently set timelines for the end of their respective states' school mask mandates pointing to a significant drop in COVID-19 cases for the reason to transition away from students wearing masks. Meanwhile in Massachusetts parents, teachers, and leaders appear divided on the decision to lift the statewide school mandates and whether this is the safest choice for school communities at this time. On the opposite coast, face coverings will also still be required in schools for children and teachers in California as the state navigates lifting their mask mandate. 

Just as school re-openings were a controversial part of the Coronavirus pandemic during 2020 and 2021, whether to lift face mask mandates or keep them intact within schools seems to have taken over the controversy. Yet there also appears to be a third train of thought to enter the discussion: making wearing face masks in school optional. 

Across the United States, teachers’ unions are providing strong supporter of mask wearing, pushing for their members, students, and staff to have access to medical-grade masks and respirators like those available at CovCare.

In New York, Brooklyn’s prestigious Poly Prep Country Day School became the first city school to officially make masks optional for students, teachers, and faculty while pointing to sharp declines in case counts and non-coronavirus-related hospitalizations as their reason to make masks optional at this point of their school year. School officials are encouraging students and staff who wish to wear masks to do so and with weekly testing protocols remaining in place. 

Making mask wearing optional for students at school has also been the case for some school districts in Virginia, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, and Washington state, while in North Carolina school board members are shifting to optional masking if the COVID-19 positivity rate among staff and students remains under 4 percent. At that point, schools will shift to required masking for 10 calendar days if the positivity rate goes over 4 percent.

In these early days of transitioning back to a sense of normalcy in schools across the country, staying safe still means something. Some feel masking is a beneficial health tool, especially for students who often share smaller classrooms and spaces without social distancing. Others believe face coverings are an unnecessary social barrier and restrict peer-to-peer communication. Then there is the third train of thought: that students and teachers wearing masks should remain an option and comes down to individual choice, personal preference, and keeping health and safety for all at the forefront of the discussion.  

Over the past two years at CovCare, masks for children have been one of the most requested and purchased items regardless if customers were buying FDA approved and CE certified 3-ply disposable face masks or KN95 masks. That is still the case today, even as States across the country begin to lift their mask mandate policies, keep them intact, or offer mask wearing as an option for the remainder of the school year. For parents, there’s a certain comfort level that comes with knowing their son or daughter is safe and protected each day they leave for school, a sports practice, or just to go hangout with friends. It’s the one point to keep in mind as the debate for lifting mask mandates go on. 

Keeping a child safe, healthy, and protected still matters most in the end.