On Sunday, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that New York state will end its mask requirement for schools and child care facilities starting Wednesday. “The day has come,” the governor said. On Monday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said indoor masking at schools and child care facilities after March 11. For students in Los Angeles Unified School District, masking appears to remain in place through the end of the year per an agreement between the district and the teachers union, although the timetable could be renegotiated. New York City Mayor Eric Adams already followed the governor’s lead, saying that he plans to drop the city’s school masking rule — along with vaccine requirements for restaurants, gyms and movie theaters — on March 7. Adams said his administration would continue to monitor COVID case rates and promised to make a final decision by Friday. “New Yorkers stepped up and helped us save lives by reaching unprecedented levels of vaccination,” he in a statement.

In early February, a flurry of Democratic states including New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut announced the end of their K-12 face-covering rules. Yet a few holdout states, and many individual districts, still require students to cover up without a set end date — and decision makers are seeking further clarity on when to safely drop the practice.

As if on cue, two new papers deliver a clear, quantitative look at just how many cases unmasking might trigger, helping school leaders set customized benchmarks for the end of mandates based on their community’s expressed goals.

“Instead of saying, ‘Well, you know, masks off, people get sick. Masks on, fewer people get sick,’ [officials can understand] what exactly the magnitude of these outcomes are,” said John Giardina, the lead author of one of the papers and a Harvard University Ph.D student.

His , which was peer-reviewed and published Feb. 14 in JAMA Network, uses simulation modeling to identify the COVID transmission levels at which virus spread would stay in control even when classrooms are mask-optional. 

It comes as New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said leaders in her state are such as community COVID transmission levels and pediatric hospitalizations as they decide whether to lift the statewide school mask mandate in March. And California officials say they are examining student vaccination rates to when schools might be able to scrap their mask rules, even as health officials say the county will likely for other settings by late March.

“We’re among the 13 states that have not ended their school masking requirements,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said . “I have stated very clearly that on the 28th of this month we will be announcing a specific date. That date with destiny, the masks will come off, and we’ll do it in an appropriate manner.”

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have signaled that they will be looking to in the coming weeks, with an emphasis on preventing hospitalizations rather than avoiding transmission altogether.

The study Giardina published with co-authors from universities such as Stanford, Brown and Johns Hopkins allows decision makers to consider all of those metrics — case rates, vaccination levels and hospitalizations — simultaneously.

Using the ‘formula’

School leaders can select from three possible objectives: Avoiding all in-school transmission (which Giardina acknowledges may be an unrealistic standard), keeping the average additional cases due to unmasking below a specified level, such as 5 per month, or keeping the average additional hospitalizations under a threshold, such as 3 per 100,000 people per month. 

Then, based on the share of students who have been inoculated with COVID vaccines, they can find the appropriate community transmission level for unmasking.

“If you have your goals and you have the context you’re in in your community when it comes to vaccination and how effective you think masks are, you could certainly look at that table as a kind of formula and say, ‘Should we take off masks, or shouldn’t we?’” Giardina told ����Ӱ��.

He cautions, however, that the model used in the study relies on certain assumptions that decision makers should take into account. For example, it uses transmission rates from Delta rather than Omicron, and assumes a school with 638 students and 60 staff.

“I would still hope policymakers take all the uncertainties into account and how things might differ for each particular community,” he said.

In the table above, schools can usually focus on the middle column, the researcher explained, which assumes the switch to mask-optional classrooms will decrease overall COVID mitigation effectiveness from 70 percent to 30 percent. But if the building has particularly effective ventilation, staving off some virus particles even when kids don’t cover up, they might push to the left column, where mitigation remains slightly higher even after scrapping face coverings. Conversely, if the school previously helped students access high-quality masks like KN95s, the dropoff in mitigation effectiveness when unmasking might be steeper, pushing schools to the right column.

A school with 50 percent student vaccination that assumes an average drop in protection without masks (middle column) and is willing to accept an average of up to 10 additional COVID cases per month due to the policy change could go mask optional once community transmission falls below 22 cases per 100,000 residents per day, according to the table. If the school increases its student vaccination rate to 70 percent, the threshold jumps to 32 cases per 100,000 because the stronger immunization rate will help stave off the higher community transmission rate.

Fifteen states and Washington, D.C. were at or below per day, as of Feb 22. Another 15 were below 32 per 100,000. Nationally, case counts are trending downward, in some communities dramatically with 60 to 75 percent declines over the last 14 days.

Of the 500 largest U.S. school districts, currently require students to wear masks, according to data collected by Burbio, which has tracked school policy through the pandemic. That’s down from 60 percent at the beginning of February, and other districts have mask-optional policies set to kick in in the coming weeks.

In New York, where no end to the statewide school masking rule has yet been specified, of registered voters said they supported Gov. Hochul’s plan to review COVID data in early March before making any changes, while 30 percent thought the mandate should already have been lifted, according to a from the Siena College Research Institute released Tuesday. Another 10 percent said they wanted the policy to end after this week’s school vacation.

A second datapoint

As the move toward unmasking continues, a out of Duke University’s corroborates Giardina’s findings, adding a second tool for school leaders to use in their decision making.

Like the study published in JAMA Network, the ABC Science Collaborative paper links school face-covering policies to additional likely COVID cases based on community transmission rates.

“You can see the differences in masking versus not masking and how many cases per week will happen in the community as a result of school policy,” said Danny Benjamin, professor of pediatrics at Duke and co-chair of the Collaborative, explaining his findings to educators in a Feb. 14 . “You can then match these differences with your community’s risk tolerance as it relates to COVID.”

The paper, which the authors call a “blueprint” for navigating school policy this spring, draws on data from 61 school districts with varying mask rules. The researchers used those figures to then project the implications of mask-optional versus mask-required policies in a hypothetical 10,000-student school system.

When community case rates are high, mask mandates prevent much would-be transmission, the authors found. In universally masked schools, it generally takes 20 to 25 COVID-positive individuals to set foot in the building for one case of in-school transmission to occur, said Benjamin, compared to other settings where the average infected person tends to pass the virus on to at least one other person. 

“The short version is that masking clearly works,” he said.

However, when community case rates are low, the difference in prevented cases shrinks and school leaders may decide that enforcing a mandate is not worth the downsides. Research suggests that masks may hinder youngsters’ and interfere with for people of all ages.

When case rates are just 100 per 100,000 residents per week, or about 14 per 100,000 per day (roughly the infection level before the Delta surge), districts with universal masking prevent only three additional cases compared to districts with voluntary masking. At 250 per 100,000 residents per week, where many communities currently stand, school mask mandates fend off an extra 10 cases in the district per week, the paper projects.

The brief does not break down expected cases by school vaccination rates. Nationwide, just under a quarter of children aged 5 to 11 and 56 percent of youth aged 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the .

For some broader perspective, Benjamin reminded school leaders that children are just as likely or more likely to be hospitalized when they catch the flu or RSV compared to the coronavirus in all age groups except for 12- to 17-year-olds who have not been vaccinated against COVID.

Still, Benjamin’s co-chair at the Collaborative, Kanecia Zimmerman, emphasized that any shift in policy has implications not just for families’ physical health but also their mental health. An early February conducted by CBS News found that 57 percent of parents of school-aged children believe masks should still be required in school while only 36 percent said they should be optional. Another 7 percent want face coverings banned in classrooms.

Even when epidemiologically sound, a shift to voluntary masking may create distress for families, and the Duke associate professor of pediatrics urged school officials to consider bolstering the mental health supports available to students.

“Unmasking … is going to represent a substantial change for many families, for many districts, for many children,” she said. “When you’re making decisions about how to move forward, make those decisions in light of how you might be able to do things for the whole child.”

The news comes as the number of average daily COVID cases in the U.S. has in the past two weeks, and as fears for spread of the Omicron variant have motivated a to a level not seen since late May. 

“With both the Delta and Omicron variants continuing to spread, vaccination remains the best protection against COVID-19,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock in a .

The Omicron strain, listed as a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization in late November, currently makes up a miniscule fraction of U.S. infections, but features a combination of mutations that worries scientists. It is known to have infected more than , the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the Associated Press Wednesday.

The first look at how vaccines hold up against the Omicron variant bodes well for the efficacy of Pfizer-BioNTech’s booster doses, experts say. 

Lab data published Tuesday analyzing how effectively blood from vaccinated South Africans neutralized the new strain found that the virus did evade the immune defenses more craftily than previous versions of COVID. However, blood from individuals who had a previous infection and then received two vaccine doses did a good job staving off Omicron. It’s the best proxy so far for the immunity of those who have received three doses, scientists say, because South Africa has not yet authorized booster shots.

“​​This study gives me great hope that our boosters will help protect against Omicron,” Katelyn Jetelina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas School of Public Health, wote in a explaining the new lab results.

In authorizing third doses for 16- and 17-year olds, the FDA expanded its already existing emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to include older teens. Before shots can be officially administered to the newly eligible group, they need to receive the green light from the CDC, an authorization that is expected to come swiftly. The federal agency cleared boosters for all adults 18 and older in early November.

“Since we first authorized the vaccine, new evidence indicates that vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 is waning after the second dose of the vaccine for all adults and for those in the 16- and 17-year-old age group,” said Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. “A single booster dose of the vaccine for those vaccinated at least six months prior will help provide continued protection against COVID-19 in this and older age groups.” 

Meanwhile, as many Americans are still wrapping their minds around first, second and third doses, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said late Wednesday that the Omicron variant could mean will be necessary in under 12 months.

New Mexico appears to be the first state to require that certain workers receive booster shots, including a vaccinate-or-test rule for K-12 staff. So far, about 9 percent of school employees statewide have submitted documentation of having received a third dose.

Ensuring that staff and eligible students up their immunity as Omicron threats loom may be of particular importance given that temporary school closures have continued through the fall. Roughly 10 percent of the nation’s schools have experienced a disruption this school year alone. Some closures have been due to outbreaks, but others have been caused by teacher burnout and staffing shortages.

As of Dec. 1, some 4.3 million children ages 5 to 11, representing 15 percent of the age group, had received a vaccine dose. The same was true for ages 12 to 17, and over half had completed the full two-dose series, according to data published by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Across all ages, more than people in the U.S are now fully vaccinated, about 60 percent of the population.

Pfizer-BioNTech has submitted initial data to the Food and Drug Administration that its COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for 5- to 11-year olds, the pharmaceutical company Tuesday.

The development represents another key step toward shots for young children, but Pfizer has yet to formally submit a request to the FDA for authorization to inoculate the roughly Americans under 12 years old, which it must do before the federal agency can fully begin the weeks-long review process.

Though younger children are not yet cleared for the vaccine, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered COVID shots for all eligible K-12 students in the state, marking the first such statewide move in the nation. The mandate but depends on when vaccines receive full FDA approval for young people ages 12 and up, the Los Angeles Times reports. Currently, Pfizer shots have full FDA approval for use in individuals 16 or older.

“This is just another vaccine,” Newsom said. Coronavirus shots will be added to “a well-established list that currently includes 10 vaccines and well-established rules and regulations that have been advanced by the Legislature for decades.”

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Pfizer’s submission for emergency use authorization among kids under 12 will come , CEO Albert Bourla told ABC News on Sunday.

If Bourla’s company sticks to that timeline, young kids should have access to COVID shots before the end of next month, said Dr. Anthony Fauci.

“I would imagine in the next few weeks [the FDA] will examine that data and hopefully give the OK so we can start vaccinating children hopefully by the end of October,” the nation’s top infectious disease expert told MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

An anonymous source familiar with the authorization process, however, told The Wall Street Journal that if Pfizer delays its submission to the FDA, clearance for young children to receive shots

Either way, it’s big news for schools, says Atlanta-based pediatrician Jennifer Shu. Though classrooms have not proven to be the locus of viral spread through the pandemic, circulation of the highly contagious Delta variant this fall has spurred outbreaks forcing some already since buildings opened. In late September, minors made up , the American Academy of Pediatrics reports, though the risk of severe outcomes remains small, doctors say.

“Once kids ages 5 to 11 are eligible for [the] vaccine, attending school during the pandemic will be safer,” Shu wrote in a message to ����Ӱ��.

The Pfizer data included 2,268 participants ages 5 to 11 who were each given a two-dose regimen of the vaccine 21 days apart. Children were given a 10 microgram dose, smaller than the 30 micrograms administered to older children and adults, which the drug company said was a carefully selected dosage for safety, tolerability and effectiveness.

In an internal review of the results last week, Pfizer reported that one month after the second dose, the shots produced a “robust” antibody response, including immunity and side effects comparable to that delivered by the larger dose in 16- to 25-year-old patients.

The FDA said that it will analyze those data as soon as possible, the .

In the Atlanta pediatrician’s practice, patients are eager to have youngsters inoculated — though Shu’s clientele may be the exception, from a nationwide perspective.

“I’m mostly seeing families that are all in,” she said. “​​Children are telling me they can’t wait until they can get the vaccine, since they are often the only ones in their family who haven’t even gotten one dose yet.”

Youth ages 12 and up have been eligible for doses since May, but , according to the AAP. By that measure, inoculating those under 12 years old may prove a challenge.

A Kaiser Family Foundation national poll from mid-August found that only of 5- to 11-year olds would want their child to receive the COVID-19 shot right away after it’s cleared, while another 40 percent said they would “wait and see.” That attitude may be changing, however, as of U.S. parents surveyed in a Gallup poll published Tuesday indicated that they would have their children inoculated against COVID-19 if shots were available.

Getting children under 12 vaccinated “will be an uphill battle,” Rebecca Wurtz, professor of health policy at the University of Minnesota, told ����Ӱ��. “I think parents are even more protective of their younger kids (than their older children).”

In the Kaiser survey, an additional 9 percent of parents said they would get their youngsters vaccinated only if the shots were required. Meanwhile, momentum is building for schools to do just that.

Last week, Oakland Unified School District in California joined Golden State counterparts Los Angeles and Culver City, as well as Hoboken, New Jersey, in in order to attend in-person school.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials chose not to comment when asked by ����Ӱ�� last week whether they would extend their student vaccine requirement to learners ages 5 to 11, should shots be approved for that age group.

Whether or not student vaccination mandates continue to expand, Shu believes the real-world outcomes from COVID shots should encourage parents who may be on the fence.

“More than 5.5 billion doses of COVID vaccine have been given worldwide,” she points out. “I hope that builds confidence for parents to give it to their children.”

����Ӱ��: What was the atmosphere like in the community during the peaks of anti-Asian hate and COVID-19?

Alice Hom: During the pandemic, our school had 30 percent of our students in person, so about 70 percent were remote, full time, the whole year. And a lot of that, I believe, did have to do with the fear of COVID-19 … but also with the anti-Asian sentiment mid year, parents did express fear of traveling on subways and buses … and were concerned about the safety of their kids, both health wise and physically.

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����Ӱ��: How did you combat the negativity during the heightened times of hate?

Alice Hom: Around May, when we had our celebration of Asian Pacific month … our district, district 2 had a whole initiative where all the kids wore buttons that expressed love, peace, and prosperity. The kids also wrote on ribbons about what their hopes and dreams are. We displayed that around the school to create a positive environment for families. And during the summer, during the summer program, a few more of the remote families did come back partly to get the kids reacclimated with their peers, and to psychologically get ready for next school year.

����Ӱ��: Could go into specifics of what you are anticipating for this upcoming school year? Are there any anxious parents? Or does it just seem like everyone’s like returning back and excited?

Alice Hom: I think there’s still, especially with the Delta variant, there is that hesitancy … one parent was expressing that, there should be still a remote option for families. And that they’re very nervous about the illness, especially since the elementary school kids are not being vaccinated yet. And they were asking about masks and, and teachers being vaccinated. We’ve tried to address their concerns, and I spoke to that parent and said many of the teachers in my school that I know of are vaccinated, and we are getting ready for full in person. And we are going to continue masking. Everyone is required to have the mask, and we will do the social distance. We’re trying to figure out how to safely have lunch periods, when the distance should be larger and kids are unmasked. But that is our goal to have kids back in the fall.

����Ӱ��: Are there any concerns in terms of anti-Asian hate as schools return in the fall?

Alice Hom: We are going to address it, I mean, district 2 is focusing on, being culturally responsive, providing education and talking about racism and how to address those kinds of discrimination. And things like that. So, that is something that is being addressed both for Asians as well as the Black and Hispanic population … We are going to use videos and books for the kids to bring their own ideas about how they’re feeling. That’s really what we’re concentrating on at the beginning of the year, to have them talk about what their fears are, what their concerns are, and just to talk about what are the best ways to keep themselves and your family safe and healthy.

����Ӱ��: Do people still feel safe to be a little more hesitant? Do you think that sense of community was lost?

Alice Hom: I think there are a lot more cautious families in the neighborhood, there has been crime (against) the community, so we’ve had a lot more awareness. And many of the schools in our district have contacted our local precinct in order to have them Zoom and talk to the parents about safety tips. A lot of our staff members and family members got those whistles, and we distributed them out to people who wanted them. I think there is much more consciousness and vigilance that many of our families in the area have shown.

����Ӱ��: Is there anything else you’d like to share?

Alice Hom: The Asian community is a strong community and has contributed so much to America, and especially in education. So there needs to be more collaborative and positive media and social media to address their contributions, but also to address their concerns in a way that is not derogatory or not looked down upon.

After just eight days in classrooms, 37 positive coronavirus cases in the 16,000-student district outside Indianapolis had triggered hundreds of student quarantines, forcing young people to miss out on classes and extracurriculars.

Superintendent Jeff Butts knew he had to act fast. The district had begun the year mask optional in late July. But in early August, he stumbled on a solution, hidden in plain sight: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had just updated its guidance, exempting students from self-isolation if they and the infected student were properly masked and spaced at least 3 feet apart.

“That was my biggest tipping point, quite frankly, when the CDC came out and made that change,” Butts told ����Ӱ��. “I realized that if we had all of our children in masks … I can quarantine fewer children.”

But not everyone got the message. It doesn’t appear that the guidance trickled down to many other school systems, where , according to a recent survey of 100 districts from the University of Washington’s Center for Reinventing Public Education. One reason for the disconnect is that CDC made little attempt to billboard the policy shift, which only appears in an on case investigation and tracing updated Aug. 5.

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“It’s buried in some appendix to the close contact definition,” Emily Oster, Brown University economist who has tracked schooling through the pandemic, told ����Ӱ��. Under many school systems’ quarantine protocols, spending 15 minutes within a six foot radius of an infected individual — sitting next to them in class, for example — can force students to stay home for up to two weeks. The new exemption allows schools to bypass that rule in cases where both individuals mask up.

Across the country, as school leaders struggle with quarantine totals that are stretching into the thousands just weeks after schools opened their doors, the new masking exemption to self-isolation guidelines, could help districts sidestep chaotic reopenings amid divisive politics surrounding the use of masks.

In the past week across the country, New Orleans School District after 299 recorded COVID cases. Mississippi has statewide, an official announced. And a district in Texas . Meanwhile, Texas — among other states like Florida, Arkansas and Arizona — maintains a ban on mask mandates, though school systems like those in Dallas and Miami are .

The CDC did not respond to ����Ӱ��’s request for an explanation of why the update wasn’t publicized more widely. But Oster, the Brown economist, said it’s possible that when the CDC updated the definition of close contact for quarantining, “they didn’t realize how important it would be for school guidance,” and thus didn’t heavily broadcast the change.

At the very least, it’s clear the hidden clause gives districts a “huge incentive to have everybody mask,” Oster said.

As of Aug. 11, all students and faculty in Wayne Township are now required to wear face coverings. Site leaders have told Butts that the district is already seeing fewer quarantines, though the superintendent said he doesn’t yet have this week’s numbers.

Wayne Township is not the only locale to pull the trigger on face coverings in response to skyrocketing COVID absences. Elsewhere in Indiana, Greater Clark County Schools adopted a universal masking rule on Aug. 7 after some 70 COVID cases . In Arkansas, the Marion schools superintendent mourned that the state-level ban on mask mandates had caused a nearly in his district. And in Ohio, in an effort to avoid the fate of mass quarantines, Lakota Local Schools outside Cincinnati announced a , just two days before students returned to classrooms.

“Because we want to keep our kids in school all year long, just like we did last year, we made a decision this weekend to move to masks,” Superintendent Matt Miller told ����Ӱ��.

Where school systems have the latitude to set their own face covering rules, “all these school districts are probably going to go to masks because there’s too much COVID right now,” said Dennis Roche, co-founder of the website Burbio, which has tracked school policy through the pandemic.

While exposure to infected individuals often keeps large numbers of students home from school, very few students in isolation actually turn out to contract the virus themselves, Oster noted. Having a rule that allows healthy students to avoid missing class is crucial, she said.

“The quarantine itself is tremendously disruptive. And so I think that having an off ramp or a way to make it possible for people not to have to quarantine after an exposure is just huge for generating a functioning school system.”

As Delta variant COVID cases continue to surge, allowing students to come to school without masks and spread the virus is inexcusable, said Dan Domenech, executive director of the School Superintendents Association.

“If you have to now quarantine a student because they’ve been exposed to somebody because nobody was wearing a mask, that’s a problem,” he told ����Ӱ��. “From a logistical point of view, the easiest thing to do is to say everybody needs to wear a mask.”

Despite the potentially large implications for schools’ daily operations, there was “not much emphasis” on the CDC’s policy change, said Domenech — meaning many districts may still be struggling to catch up.

From a public health perspective, the move aligns with what Phil Chan, medical director for the Rhode Island Department of Health, says are the best practices to prevent the spread of COVID.

“Where we are with our case transmission rates across the country… I think [masking] makes all the sense in the world,” he told ����Ӱ��. It’s “the bare minimum we should be doing at this time.”

Still, in his home state, face covering policies in school are “all over the map,” he said, which he fears could spell unnecessary COVID spread and lost learning.

Last week in Georgia, for example, four school districts — some of which had mask-optional policies — due to COVID outbreaks.

As summer ends and students return Wednesday to Lakota Local Schools, that’s precisely the situation that Superintendent Miller hopes to avoid.

“I think the social emotional pitfall of masking is bad enough, but I think the social emotional pitfall of being at home and learning again from home is probably worse.”

“I was part of those people that sort of had their doubts,” the Miami high school senior told ����Ӱ��.

He was worried that the development of the shot was too quick, and that perhaps the safety checks were incomplete. He opted to hold off on receiving the vaccine.

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But soon after, a classmate changed his mind.

Abigail Felan, communications director for the student-led nonprofit , was presenting information on the vaccine to classes at Coral Gables Senior High School, where she and Montigny are students, as part of her organization’s all-new Teens Get the Vaccine campaign. For Montigny, who over the summer would be traveling to France to spend time with his grandmother and was worried about putting her at risk, Felan’s pitch struck a chord. Hearing her speak about the vaccine’s safety and benefits was enough to convince him to roll up his sleeve before going overseas.

Now, as schools across the country prepare to return students to classrooms after a summer marked by increasing COVID caseloads brought on by the Delta variant, New Voters is re-launching its Teens Get the Vaccine campaign. The group hopes to persuade peers, like Montigny, on the fence over whether or not to get vaccinated.

“This is such a pressing issue right now,” said Felan, whose state has one of the worst outbreaks of the Delta variant in the nation, with there this week.

Youth vaccination rates continue to . As of July 28, some , according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, representing 40 percent of 16- to 17-year-olds and 28 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds. Another 2.2 million teens and adolescents had received a single dose. Meanwhile, against COVID.

Down from a high of 1.6 million youth vaccinations per week in late May, rates fell to 315,000 shots per week in early July, before rebounding slightly, with 450,000 individuals under 18 immunized in the week prior to July 28. The uptick may perhaps reflect growing concern for the highly transmissible Delta variant, which more readily infects young people than previous strains. Youth 12 and up are currently eligible for COVID-19 immunizations, and .

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has launched an all-out blitz to vaccinate eligible students in the country’s largest school district, including a , before the district’s mid-September start.

Felan’s student-led organization, she believes, has special leverage to persuade teens to get vaccinated because they can empathize with their peers’ concerns.

“We have that youth appeal to show that we understand,” Felan, also a rising senior, told ����Ӱ��.

With misinformation about the vaccine constantly being spread online and landing in teenagers’ newsfeeds, Felan and her team try not to shame students for having the facts wrong, she added.

“It’s important to show that we are empathetic.”

From Aug. 6 to Sept. 6, New Voters will double down on its campaign. This spring, Felan reached over 2,000 students by Zooming into classes at her school and speaking about the vaccine. This fall, the group plans to expand its classroom presentation campaign to other locales where the nonprofit has member branches, including California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well as other parts of Florida outside Miami.

The organization also recorded TikTok videos and Instagram reels that together amassed over 10,000 views and conducted a to answer youth questions on vaccine safety.

This fall, the youth-powered group plans to continue its information campaign and will partner with various civic engagement organizations such as and . On Friday, New Voters will hold an Instagram live session with Katie Grossbard, a founding member of the nonprofit , a nonprofit working to promote democratic participation, says Felan, who is hopeful that the collaborations will help her team’s message reach new audiences.

“On a national level, I really hope we can double our reach — or triple our reach,” said the high schooler.

She knows there will always be people who watch their videos and ignore the information. But then again, she says, there will also be people who learn something new or are inspired to have a conversation about the vaccine. After seeing a TikTok clip, “maybe they talk to their sister or their friend about [the shot],” said Felan.

The group has already had an international impact. Montigny, inspired by the pitch he received from New Voters, was able to talk his French cousins, who he’s staying with this summer, into making vaccine appointments for themselves.

When he returns to Miami, he says, “If I have friends that are not [vaccinated], I know that I can try to convince them.”

The most recent vaccine timelines say your child , but with shots widely available to adolescents, teens and adults, it seemed the country was returning to something resembling normalcy: Restaurants are full, movie theaters are open and professional sports are back in full swing.

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At the same time, however, rampant spread of the more infectious Delta variant spurred the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday to reverse course on masking recommendations in schools, now whether vaccinated or not.With COVID cases , and with especially rapid transmission in under-vaccinated areas, the risks of the pandemic to kids has not faded.

“The Delta variant resets the COVID clock back to March 2020 for people who are not yet vaccinated, including children,” Rebecca Wurtz, professor of health policy at the University of Minnesota, told ����Ӱ�� via email.

That leaves many parents wondering how to safely navigate the fast approaching back-to-school season. With in wide circulation, we spoke directly to health experts to offer some clarity.

Here’s what they had to say:

1 Is the Delta variant more dangerous to my child than previous strains of COVID-19?

Short answer: yes and no.

The level of danger to kids includes two important dimensions: 1) how likely is it that a child will contract the virus, and 2) how likely is it that, once testing positive, a child will suffer a serious outcome like hospitalization or long-term symptoms.

On the first front, the Delta variant is significantly more transmissible than other COVID strains. With the mutation now the predominant strain in the U.S., there is an elevated risk that anyone unvaccinated, including kids, will catch the virus, doctors told ����Ӱ��.

But on the second front, there is no indication, says UCLA professor of pediatrics Ishminder Kaur, that when young people test positive, even for the Delta variant, they are getting sicker than they would with previous strains.

“We might see an increase in number [of cases], but we’re not seeing an increase in severity,” the infectious disease expert told ����Ӱ��.

That’s extremely good news, says Janet Englund, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Consistent across all strains, the COVID expert told ����Ӱ��, “children who get infected with the virus, even a variant, are less likely to get very sick than an adult.”

A rare but severe condition, multisystem inflammatory syndrome, does appear to be , and between also include months of “long COVID” symptoms like brain fog and tiredness. But recent numbers from the United Kingdom put the absolute risk of death from the coronavirus in children at approximately .

2 Is in-person learning safe this fall?

While of course there are exceptions, droves of academic studies show that, for the majority of students, learning in the classroom is linked to positive academic and socio-emotional outcomes.

Last school year, a collection of 130 studies found that schools were not the locus of community spread, and could safely reopen as long as safety measures like ventilation, masking and distancing were in place and infection rates in the surrounding area were not raging.

“Children should return to school in person this fall to make avail of all the benefits of in-person learning,” encouraged Amruta Padhye, pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Missouri. On Friday, the White House officials said .

But a safe reopening is predicated on schools implementing measures to mitigate spread of the virus. So what combinations of protocols actually makes a school “safe?” Read on.

3 What if my child’s school doesn’t require masks?

On Tuesday, the CDC changed its K-12 guidance to say that all students, faculty and visitors in schools should wear masks, in alignment with previous recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization. But that hasn’t made the question of masks in school any less political.

Seven states still bar school districts from requiring face coverings in the classroom, while another six mandate that all schools enforce universal masking, according to Burbio’s . Most other states leave the decision up to individual school systems.

In light of super-heated debates, and quickly changing guidance that represents just how rapidly the Delta variant has changed the COVID safety landscape, parental uncertainty on how to navigate face coverings in school is extremely valid.

The research, however, is clear: “Masks have been proven to reduce transmission of virus and protect those who are still unvaccinated,” Padhye wrote in an email to ����Ӱ��.

Even if your school does not require masks or your state bans face-covering mandates, you should still put one on your child when they go back to school, said Kaur.

“It’s still an extra barrier in place,” the UCLA health expert advised.

4 Beyond face coverings, what other strategies stop the spread in school?

In addition to masking, the California pediatrician points to the importance of “layered” virus mitigation strategies — or “using multiple strategies together and using them consistently,” she says.

Three-foot distancing is one key measure, she says, but staying apart can be tricky in classrooms cramped for space.

When masking is not required and proper distancing is not an option, parents can advocate for an array of other approaches, experts say, including:

• Smaller groups of students working together: Kaur recommends parents ask their district, “What is the expected class size for my child?”
• Outdoor activities, whenever possible: “You want to have a school that, for example, has outdoor recess as opposed to indoor recess,” said Englund.
• Avoiding large functions held inside: “I would discourage ‘all-school’ indoor events, like pep rallies and assemblies,” advises Wurtz.
• Maximizing airflow: “Urge your child’s school to improve ventilation in classrooms by opening windows (as long as the weather allows) and providing in-classroom HEPA filters,” Wurtz added.

5 How useful are symptom checks?

Containing the coronavirus in classrooms also means making sure the most virulent spreaders don’t walk through the schoolhouse door.

Of course, there will always be asymptomatic cases among children, but according to a recent study co-authored by Englund, .

“If you’re symptomatic, if you’re sick, you have more virus,” said the Seattle infectious disease expert. “One could infer that you’re more infectious.”

In other words, using screens such as temperature checks to aggressively keep students and staff who are experiencing COVID symptoms out of the school building could go a long way toward reducing transmission, even if a few asymptomatic carriers slip through the cracks.

“Screening sick kids to keep (them) out of school makes sense,” Englund said.

6 What else can I do to protect my child?

Vaccination has proven to be a strong defense against the Delta variant, even with the now-likely possibility that a as a booster for the elderly and immunocompromised.

While children under 12 years old still lack access to even the initial COVID shots, parents can work to ensure that those in their immediate circle are immunized, limiting kids’ exposure.

It’s a tried and true public health technique known as “cocooning” — often used for infants — Wurtz explained, where caretakers of those too young for immunization make sure their own shots are up to date to provide a level of buffer to protect the vulnerable child.

“Since children below 12 years old are not yet eligible for vaccination, it makes it even more imperative that family members who are eligible get fully vaccinated,” said University of Missouri’s Padhye.

Beyond family members, Wurtz says, the cocooning technique can include “encouraging your school district to encourage or require all of its personnel … to be vaccinated, as well as encouraging other children’s activity providers … and extended family members to be vaccinated.”

Combining available safety strategies, Kaur hopes, can allow families seeking to return their children to classrooms to feel comfortable with the move. After all, she says, “the best learning environment for a child is in person.”

Nearly next school year, according to a recent tally from Burbio, a website that tracks school calendars and reopenings.

Of the 200 largest U.S. school systems, 128 will hold virtual programs this fall, while 60 — such as those in , and — will offer no fully remote options, save for medical exceptions for immunocompromised students. Another 12 have yet to announce their plans.

The update comes as the highly transmissible Delta variant now accounts for the , casting uncertainty on an upcoming school year that, just weeks ago, many observers had hoped would mark a — and spurring many parents to revise their expectations for the fall.

“Everyone is assuming that all kids are going back into buildings in September,” Annette Anderson, who is a mother of three children in Baltimore City Public Schools, told ����Ӱ��. “And I’m not really clear with the Delta variant what’s going to happen.”

Her kids — rising 8th-, 9th- and 11th-graders — had already endured a year and a half of remote classes, and were itching to see their friends, she said.

But when COVID case counts once again began to rise in late June, her family’s calculus suddenly became much more complicated. Kids under 12 do not yet have access to vaccinations, Anderson points out, and with many schools following a recent update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that said vaccinated students and staff could forgo face coverings, she worries that schools could become vectors of spread this fall.

A possible precursor of dangers still to come, the U.S. has experienced a in states such as Texas, Illinois, Florida, Missouri and Kansas in June and July.

“There is still a lot of outstanding questioning on my part about whether or not we are ready to let our kids go back into buildings full time,” said the Baltimore mother, who is also an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education.

At first, “I was comfortable with [my kids] going back to school,” she said, “[but now] the question of children carrying the Delta variant is still very open ended.”

Halfway across the country, just outside of San Antonio, Texas, Deneatra Terry feels similarly. Her state has banned virtual-only school options this fall, and now the mother of two is shopping around for a charter school that would allow her youngest to stay online or keep class sizes low for social distancing.

“If there is something out there … worse than the [previous strains of] COVID, you shouldn’t be in such a rush to open that damn [schoolhouse] door,” she told ����Ӱ��. “If you keep knocking on the door, the devil does answer, eventually.”

The mothers are not alone in their concern. Worry for the highly infectious mutation could impact the schooling choices that many parents make for their kids this fall, says Robin Lake, director of the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education.

“I think the Delta variant has quite a few families spooked,” she told ����Ӱ�� via email. “A lot of families may decide to hedge their bets and enroll in alternative programs.”

Because the new strain is even than the Alpha variant before it, which originated in the United Kingdom, the coming months may mark the “most dangerous” time in the pandemic for unvaccinated individuals and young people, University of Missouri infectious disease expert Taylor Nelson told ����Ӱ�� in late June.

But while acknowledging that the Delta variant is “incredibly concerning,” Philip Chan, medical director for the Rhode Island Department of Health, says that schools do not have to be risky places for children.

Last year, “we really did see minimal transmission in the K-12 setting, which is reassuring,” he told ����Ӱ��. In Chan’s home state, the vast majority of student and staff coronavirus cases came from out-of-school exposures, he explained.

Last spring, hundreds of academic studies pointed to mitigation measures such as masking and ventilation that schools could use to reopen safely. New CDC guidelines now emphasize flexibility for schools and districts to implement “layered mitigation strategies” to keep kids safe, which proponents say will allow schools more freedom to problem-solve and take local levels of infection into account. Critics meanwhile worry the new guidance will allow decision makers to sidestep key safety measures.

Above all else, however, the Rhode Island doctor emphasizes immunization as the single most effective way to limit spread, including for the new variant.

“We know that the vaccines, certainly the ones we’re using here in the U.S., are effective against the Delta variant,” said Chan. “As long as people in the community … are vaccinated, hopefully the risk of transmission within the K-12 setting will be minimal.”

According to a recent announcement from Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company will seek to expand its existing emergency authorization for shots to . Their pediatric vaccine trials are currently underway. Even with expanded authorization, it’s unclear whether parents will immunize young children in large numbers and there remain swaths of the country, especially in the South, .

In the meantime, Lake, of the University of Washington, underscores the well-documented benefits of face-to-face learning for most students versus attending virtual school.

“Most of the studies comparing learning outcomes in remote learning compared to in-person show students do better both academically and emotionally when they have in-person instruction,” she said.

Ahead of the July 13 Global Education Meeting, UNICEF and UNESCO extolled the benefits of in-person learning, urging decision makers around the world to to “avoid a generational catastrophe.”

Still, there were students and families that thrived in remote learning, the Center for Reinventing Public Education director points out. The key takeaway for district leaders, she says, is that “quality options are the right solution.”

School systems, however, do not yet appear to be altering their plans.

“We’re not seeing any districts walk back plans [for in-person school] yet,” Burbio co-founder Dennis Roche told ����Ӱ��. Most districts’ strategies for the fall were formulated this past spring and were announced early in the summer, he said.

If spread of the new COVID strain does spur changes to reopening plans, those revisions would likely come “in about a three-week window in advance of school,” according to Roche, because districts take time to alter course.

In the meantime, parents will mull how to balance the academic, social-emotional and physical health needs of their children in yet another uncertain back-to-school season.

“We wanted COVID to go away with a vaccine and it has largely dissipated, but it has not disappeared,” said Anderson, in Baltimore. “So that’s what I’m wrestling with.”

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The highly contagious Delta COVID variant quickly spreading through the U.S. may force schools to double down on mitigation measures in order to reopen safely later this summer and into the fall, health experts say.

It’s “one of the most dangerous time periods [in the pandemic] for people who aren’t vaccinated,” Taylor Nelson, a University of Missouri medical doctor specializing in infectious disease, told ����Ӱ��. That includes large numbers of young people, she said.

The Delta variant now accounts for about 20 percent of all new U.S. cases, up from about 10 percent two weeks ago, and has led to surges in youth infections abroad.

In England, where the academic year runs until mid-July, a due to testing positive for the virus, self-isolation or school closures — marking the most disrupted week of learning since the country fully reopened classrooms in March.

Israel, which has led all countries in its vaccination push but has only immunized , saw the number of COVID patients in its education system in the past week.

People who have received both vaccine doses have a high level of protection against the new mutation, doctors say. But because youth under 12 are not yet eligible to receive COVID shots, and with immunization rates , Joshua Petrie, professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, worries that the rise of the Delta variant could elevate the risk for unvaccinated youth.

“Kids are probably the group now that are most susceptible to infection,” he told ����Ӱ��.

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to expand their emergency use authorization of COVID-19 vaccines to children in the .

In a revision to masking guidelines, spread of the Delta variant spurred — as well as the — to recommend that all people, regardless of vaccination status, wear face coverings in indoor spaces. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on the other hand, when asked about the WHO’s shift in stance, to their current guidance, which says fully vaccinated people can go mask-free.

Concern stems in part from new reports out of Israel that about were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, prompting the government to reimpose sanctions to stop the virus’s spread, including the return of masking requirements.

Even as fears mount, in-person classes should be a priority next year, says Robin Lake, director of the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education. Remote learning often meant fewer hours of live instruction with teachers and spurred severe learning deficits.

“We have got to get kids back in school as soon as possible,” Lake wrote in an email to ����Ӱ��.

To keep young people safe when the school year resumes this fall, Petrie anticipates that the now-familiar safety protocols employed throughout 2020-21 may be necessary, despite the fact that many states and districts scrapped their mask mandates in May and June.

“All the tools that we’ve been using over the past year and a half [such as masking and ventilation] would still be available,” said the infectious disease expert, while stressing that local levels of community spread would determine exactly what mitigation measures would be appropriate.

“Even though we’re all dealing with pandemic fatigue, this is not the time to relax,” Nelson added.

The Delta variant, which is than the U.K.-originated Alpha strain, has quickly . Scientists fear that a recently identified further mutation, dubbed “Delta plus,” could be . There is minimal evidence, however, that Delta cases are more severe than infections from other strains.

“It spreads like wildfire in places where you have fewer people vaccinated,” said the University of Missouri doctor.

In the southern portion of her state, where fewer shares of individuals have been immunized against COVID-19, the Delta variant is thought to be the driver behind a at one health center. In Colorado, after an outbreak in Mesa County, health experts estimate that now . More than 90 percent of the individuals getting sick are not known to have received any vaccine before their hospitalization, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reports.

Alarming transmission rates have prompted the Biden administration to , after acknowledging last week that the country would among eligible populations by July 4.

Low immunization rates have some health experts especially concerned for students in southern states.

“There’s the intersection of a lower vaccination rate in lots of parts of the South, an increasing spread of Delta in lots of parts of the South and it’s where kids will be back in the classroom earlier than other parts of the country,” Rebecca Wurtz, professor of health policy at the University of Minnesota, told ����Ӱ��. “All those things combine to make it a higher risk for kids.”

But regardless of local context, Nelson’s message to parents is that the best way to protect their kids — at least those who are eligible for shots — is to get the vaccine.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know that we’re at the end of this [pandemic], so the more immunity you give your kid the better,” she advised.

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Fatou and Modou have two healthy children. A 5-year-old boy who likes to build Lego towers. A 7-year-old girl who’s into anime. With each parenting decision the couple has faced over the years — picking a religious Sunday school for their kids, setting bedtime — they have mostly been on the same page.

But now, the Pawtucket, Rhode Island family is split over one of the most fundamental questions of the pandemic: whether or not to vaccinate their kids against the coronavirus.

Modou, the children’s father, who asked to be identified by his middle name because of the sensitivity of discussing a family health issue, is undecided on whether he would choose to get the kids vaccinated once they become eligible — he’d need to research it more first, he says — but he’s largely open to COVID-19 immunization. The 36-year-old works as a nursing assistant at a state hospital and rolled up his sleeve in December of last year, as soon as the shot became available to him as a health care worker.

“It’s necessary for everyone to get the vaccine so the country can keep moving,” he told ����Ӱ��.

But Fatou, who also asked to be referred to by her middle name, strongly opposes vaccinating the children.

She knows the shot offers protections and she knows young people can become seriously ill from the virus — according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from COVID-19 — but the risks are greatly reduced for kids compared to adults, she points out, and the 32-year-old mother worries that the shot may have unforeseen side effects.

“Your kid could … be the kid that has the negative reaction to the vaccine,” she told ����Ӱ��.

“I can’t call myself an anti-vaxxer,” Fatou maintains, because both of her kids have received all the immunizations necessary for school. But she herself has also chosen to skip the COVID-19 shot. She understands the public health imperative, but something about the vaccine doesn’t sit right with her.

“It’s a gut thing,” said Fatou. “I don’t want to be the guinea pig.”

The Pawtucket mother possesses a disarming self-awareness about her stance. She doesn’t speak much about the vaccine in public because she knows it’s important for as many people to get vaccinated as possible.

“For the general health of everybody, it’s better for people like me to keep our opinions to ourselves,” said Fatou.

But even if Fatou and other like-minded moms are not outspoken on the topic, it appears that the Rhode Island family’s predicament may well encapsulate a growing split among parents over the vaccine.

While women have received coronavirus shots at nationally than men throughout the pandemic, polling indicates that — especially among parents under 36.

A May , based on a survey of over 21,000 people across all 50 states published in collaboration between universities such as Northeastern, Harvard and Rutgers, found a widening gap between mothers’ and fathers’ stances on inoculating their children. Since February, the percentage of fathers who said they were “extremely unlikely” to vaccinate their kids fell from 14 percent to 11 percent, while the share of mothers who said the same held constant at 27 percent. Among moms under 36 years old, nearly a third said they were resistant to vaccinating their kids.

“The big gap persists,” Matthew Simonson, lead author of the study, told ����Ӱ��. “Fathers are becoming less resistant and mothers aren’t.”

As the U.S. struggles to sustain its pace of vaccination and with President Joe Biden acknowledging Tuesday the administration would not meet its goal of giving at least one shot to 70 percent of adults by July 4 now, the parent polling numbers present a problem for America’s vaccination campaign, says Simonson, a Ph.D. candidate at Northeastern University. In cases where moms are against immunizing their kids, youth vaccinations rarely happen, he said.

“Mothers are the primary decision makers about whether the children get vaccinated or not,” says Simonson. “Even if the fathers may be more willing, the mothers are the ones who are more involved in scheduling appointments and making health care decisions about their children.”

Such is the case for Fatou and Modou. Though the parents’ stances on the issue diverge, Fatou says that the ball is “more in [her] court” for any final decisions.

She is not ignorant to the stakes of the pandemic. In October of last year, COVID-19 claimed the life of her dearest friend’s father, who she described as one of her “parent role models.” He had coached her basketball team growing up, and Fatou and Modou, who are Muslim, would attend Christmas parties at his house every year.

The pandemic “definitely has hit closer to home,” Fatou said.

Still, the personal experience has not made Fatou any less skeptical about the vaccine. She tried reading academic journals on the topic, but had a tough time decoding the findings.

“[Studies] can tell me that five plus seven is two, and I will be like, ‘Oh, OK, that makes sense in your world,’” she said. “It’s all a trust game for me because I just don’t feel like I can understand all of the pieces at play.”

So Fatou, who works as an advisor for at Rhode Island College, is left trying to make sense of what she hears from others. That’s true of many mothers, says Simonson.

“The way that we make these decisions is not in isolation, it’s socially,” said the Northeastern researcher.

He says the social factor may represent a major part of the vaccine hesitancy equation, especially for moms. Simonson hypothesizes that among young mothers who socialize with other young mothers, there could be an “echo chamber effect” that stigmatizes COVID-19 shots for children.

In a portion of his study where respondents typed into a text box to explain their personal reasons for not getting vaccinated, many individuals expressed concerns over the authorization process, worrying that it was still an experimental vaccine, Simonson explained. Extrapolating to children, it would be reasonable to conclude that the caretaking instinct is a key component of some mothers’ resistance, he thinks.

“It’s coming from a place of really wanting what’s best for their children and thinking, mistakenly, that they’re playing it safe by being vaccine hesitant. Whereas actually, playing safe is to get your kid vaccinated,” said Simonson.

In fact, over 300 young people have after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, a higher-than-expected number which may be stoking parental fears. A CDC safety group said Wednesday there’s a between the condition and the vaccine, mostly in adolescent and young adult males after receiving their second shot. The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was meeting Wednesday to assess the situation. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has stressed that heart inflammation cases in young people are still exceedingly rare and are, in most instances, mild. The benefits of vaccination far outweigh the risks, she has said. Others, however, are not so sure, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, who is recommending kids not get the second dose of the vaccine until the heart complication is “properly reviewed.”

As the more infectious Delta COVID-19 variant takes hold in the U.S., health experts have voiced concern that . Philip Chan, medical director for the Rhode Island Department of Health, knows that kids can fall seriously ill when they contract the virus and encourages parents of vaccine-eligible children to get their kids immunized.

“The vaccines are highly effective against the Delta variant,” he told ����Ӱ��. “We have to vaccinate everyone in order to get through this.”

Highlighting a silver lining from his study, Simonson points out that parents of older children report being marginally less vaccine resistant than parents of younger kids. That happens to align well with the chronology of the FDA’s expansion of emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. The Northeastern University researcher hopes that, over time, there will be a “trickle down” effect, by which younger parents become more open to immunizing their own kids after watching as slightly older children safely receive COVID-19 doses.

Modou, who knows his wife needs to make an independent decision on the issue, hopes that a similar evolution may occur in his household.

“I’m not really that forceful,” he said. “I tend to just lay back … and maybe she would come around.”