Dropping school mask mandates is premature move from CDC | Expert Opinion

On Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it was dropping its universal recommendation that most people in the U.S. wear masks indoors, including in schools. I think this is premature.

The decision of whether or not to require kids to wear masks at schools has been fraught since the beginning of the pandemic and doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. In Pennsylvania, which hasn’t had a mask mandate in schools for months, some communities are in a state of turmoil over whether it’s time to let kids learn mask-free.

However, Philadelphia public schools are keeping their mask mandate in place, and have even have doubled down. In early February, the district said kids can’t just use a single cloth mask — they have to either double-mask or wear something that provides better protection against COVID-19.

How are we supposed to make sense of these mixed messages about masking at school?

As a researcher who studies how respiratory viruses move from one person to another and a parent with two young school-age kids, I am asked constantly whether kids should wear masks in school. And my answer is always the same: Yes.

Kids need to be in school, and in order to keep them in school, we have to keep schools and communities safe. That requires multiple layers of protection — one of which is a mask.

Research from my lab (Project PHIGHT COVID) and others consistently show that states that take more precautions have lower death tolls. And what happens at school can have a big impact on the community: Multiple studies have shown that in-person learning is associated with increased COVID-19 deaths in the community, and interventions such as masks in school reduced the public health burden to communities.

But masks are not a magic bullet; rather, we need to couple them with vaccination and increased ventilation in schools.

I also don’t think kids need to wear masks forever in schools; at some point, I believe it will be safe for them to learn mask-free. But we’re not there yet. COVID-19 vaccines for ages 5 and over only became available in November, and only approximately 25% of kids between the ages of 5 and 11 have received them. What’s more, many school-age kids have younger siblings at home, and vaccines for those under 5 are still not approved.

Cases have gone down dramatically in recent weeks, but Pennsylvania is still logging hundreds of cases per day, often more than in the summer of 2020, before vaccines were available. Given that many people are using at-home tests and not reporting new diagnoses, there are still many community cases that are undiagnosed or not included in the official case counts. More than 2,000 people in the U.S. are dying of COVID-19 every day, including more than 50 people each day just in Pennsylvania. This continued presence of the virus means that if we remove interventions such as indoor masking too soon, cases could raise once again.

My kids are in kindergarten and third grade. I’ve heard the concerns that masks make it harder for younger children who are learning to read and trying to connect sounds to specific letters. I appreciate that if students are hearing impaired and rely on lip reading, masking makes things very difficult. But other students, including my daughter and her classmates in kindergarten, are learning to read, even with masks.

Most parents — regardless of their opinion on masking in schools — want their kids to be in school, and do sports, clubs, and all the activities they like. I am no different. If masks help them do all of those things, why is it such an issue? Masks and vaccines help keep our kids in school and lower the risk of COVID-19 to our neighbors — we should all be champions of that.

We hear a lot about how COVID-19 is “no worse than the flu,” especially in kids. But nearly 200 kids died of the flu during the 2019-2020 flu season. Do you know how many have died of the flu this year so far, with the vast majority back in school and resuming normal activities? Six. (Last year, there was only one pediatric flu death.) The most likely reason: masks, along with some of the other COVID-19 precautions. Bringing back masks temporarily during flu season each year could save hundreds of kids’ lives.

When it comes to COVID-19, all of the data I’ve seen tell me that we need to continue masking in schools. Once the number of daily cases falls and stays at a lower baseline, then we can talk about removing mitigation measures such as masks. At least, until the next wave occurs.

So, despite what the CDC says, please keep your mask on — at least for a few more weeks.

Seema Lakdawala is an associate professor who specializes in respiratory viruses at the University of Pittsburgh.