To Mask, Or Not To Mask: Epidemiologists Debate Rules For K-12 Students This Fall
The COVID-19 advisory panel for Brookline, Mass., public schools met late on a Friday afternoon last week to discuss, as they had for over a year, safety in the district’s classrooms. But that morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had thrown what David Gacioch, the panel’s co-chair, called “a curveball.”
The CDC released the recommendation that students who are fully vaccinated don’t need to wear masks indoors this fall. The guidance seemed clear, except for one problem: many students are too young to get vaccinated or simply haven’t gotten the shots. So how exactly, Gacioch’s committee wondered, are schools to implement this new guidance?