New CDC mask recommendations for K-12 schools stricter than Cooper’s recent NC guidance
New federal recommendations on mask wearing in schools are stricter than what North Carolina announced last week.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said schools should be open, but everyone needs to wear a mask, regardless of vaccination status, a reverse in position from recommendations issued in early July.
The recommendations were issued Tuesday amid a surge in coronavirus cases across the nation, including in North Carolina where hospitalizations climbed over 1,000 Tuesday for the first time in more than two months.
The CDC recommended masks should be worn in public indoor spaces in areas with “substantial or high transmission.”
The CDC also recommends universal indoor masking for students, teachers, staff and visitors in K-12 schools. Students should return to full-time in-person learning in the fall, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said during a briefing Tuesday afternoon to announce the new guidance.
“Masking students is inconvenient, I know, but will allow them to learn and be with their classmates with the best available protection,” President Joe Biden said in a statement about the new CDC guidelines.
Gov. Roy Cooper has called a press conference Thursday with members of the Coronavirus Task Force. (Cooper initially scheduled the press conference for Wednesday.)
The new federal guidance for schools comes less than a week after Cooper and Dr. Mandy Cohen, Secretary of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, recommended that school districts require masks indoors for all students in elementary and middle schools. The state recommends that unvaccinated individuals in high schools, including students, wear masks.
State officials said Tuesday afternoon that they were still learning about the new CDC recommendations and what they mean for North Carolina, which has steadily lifted COVID-19 restrictions in the past few months.
“The Governor and state health officials will review changes to CDC guidance, and he strongly encourages schools and businesses to enact important safety precautions and unvaccinated people to wear masks until they get their shots,” said Ford Porter, a spokesman for Cooper, before the CDC announcement.
The current executive order, which had a mask mandate in certain settings, is set to expire at the end of July. Cooper said recently he would continue the state of emergency that has been in effect since March 2020, The News & Observer reported.
Catie Armstrong, a spokesperson for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, said earlier Tuesday that the department had not yet received details on the CDC’s recommendations, according to a statement to The News & Observer.
“We will evaluate any changes to CDC guidance when we receive it,” Armstron said.
The state health department has been quick to incorporate the CDC’s past COVID-19 recommendations into state guidance and orders.
The updated CDC guidance issued Tuesday matches guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which called for universal mask-wearing in schools earlier this month.
“With only 30% of our kids between 12 and 17 fully vaccinated now, more cases in this country and a real effort to try and make sure that our kids can safely get back to full in-person learning in the fall, we’re recommending that everybody wear masks right now,” Walensky said of K-12 schools.
In North Carolina, 31% of residents 12 to 17 have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the state’s dashboard on Tuesday. Twenty-six percent in that age group are fully vaccinated, a number that is steadily increasing.
But last week, Cohen said the number of youth getting vaccinated is “way too low.”
Delta variant concerns
The latest wave in cases and hospitalizations is attributed to the delta variant, which the CDC said is more contagious than previous versions of the virus. While some breakthrough cases have occurred — that is vaccinated people testing positive — virtually all hospitalizations and deaths are among the unvaccinated, according to the CDC.
Walensky called for all people, including those who are fully vaccinated, to wear masks in public in areas with high or substantial transmission of the coronavirus. Per CDC data, 79 of North Carolina’s 100 counties show “high” or “substantial” spread.
The CDC map differs from North Carolina’s color-coded county alert system that monitors COVID-19 rates and hospitalizations. With North Carolina’s map, there is one red county (Richmond), that has critical spread. The other 12 are orange, for substantial spread. NCDHHS said that viral spread is increasing rapidly.
The percentage of positive coronavirus tests was above 10% for the first time since Feb. 1, the state reported Tuesday. In North Carolina, more than 94% of cases and deaths reported since May 6 have been among people who were not fully vaccinated, according to the state.
In North Carolina, 60% of adults are fully vaccinated.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at link.chtbl.com/underthedomenc or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published July 27, 2021 at 3:10 PM.
