Macon County Schools will start the 2021-22 school year without a face covering mandate if the state of the pandemic doesn’t worsen between now and August.
COVID-19 vaccines have been available to adults for several months now and medical professionals have been aggressive in encouraging everyone who can get one to do so. With children, however, it’s a bit more complicated. Only children 12 years old or older are eligible for any existing vaccines according to the Center for Disease Control. Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, said that children as young as four “would likely be able to get vaccinated by the time we reach the end of calendar year 2021, and at the latest, into the first quarter of 2022,” but that still leaves school systems with a few extra months to account for.
Many Macon County parents have had it with masks. At the last meeting of the Macon County Board of Education, speakers in the public comment period were insistent that face coverings would be unnecessary to keeping kids safe in the new school year. Many of them also said that the mental strain of being isolated behind masks at school was a bigger health problem for children than the virus itself.
“I really believe that it is in the better interest of the psychological development of our children to get rid of these masks,” said Kristine Estes, a parent who spoke at the meeting.
Based on conversations with Macon County Public Health, Superintendent Chris Baldwin expects making masks optional at the start of the school year will be safe. The situation with coronavirus evolves quickly and there may be more reason for concern next month, not to mention that the state government could create new rules that will be out of the school board’s hands. However, if current trends in the county hold or improve, masks shouldn’t be necessary.
“If school started tomorrow, [public health director Kathy McGaha’s] recommendation would be that we would not begin with face coverings,” Baldwin said. “Now, school doesn’t start tomorrow… she and I will continue to monitor the COVID transmission rate in our community, and we’ll also discuss parameters and thresholds regarding what level of transmission within the community and what level of transmission within the schools might lead us to have a temporary face covering requirement at some point.”
While COVID-19 is rarer and usually less severe in children, kids can still catch, transmit and get sick from the virus. Regardless of whether the schools require face coverings at some point this year, one of the most effective things parents can do to keep their kids safe is to get them vaccinated if they’re old enough and get vaccinated themselves. Macon County Public Health encourages families to be proactive in preventing the spread of disease so that safety restrictions can keep loosening.
“We have worked closely with our partners in the community, including Macon County Schools, to give recommendations based on community spread of COVID-19,” said Emily Ritter, Macon County Public Health’s public information officer. “We are still encouraging students who are eligible and their families to get vaccinated so that this can continue to be the standard throughout Macon County Schools.”
The first day of school is Monday, August 23.
- by Jake Browning/The Franklin Press