Students who are fully vaccinated can now choose not to wear a mask in the fall. According to the new guidelines The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Friday.
This new federal guideline is not mandatory, and students will still be required to wear masks on school buses, or if their school decides otherwise.
Although the long-awaited relaxation of pandemic rules has seen normality for many students from kindergarten to 12th grade, the vaccine is only available to people 12 years and older, so a large proportion of school-age children are still not protected by the virus.
“Achieving a high level of COVID-19 vaccination among eligible students, teachers, staff, and family members is one of the most critical strategies to help schools safely resume full operations,” the CDC stated in its guidelines.
The new CDC guidelines still recommend that unvaccinated students and faculty and staff continue to wear masks and maintain a distance of 3 feet. They also encourage schools to provide voluntary routine tests at least once a week.
The CDC stated that these recommendations should not prevent classrooms from reopening.
A few months ago, school systems across the country began announcing that the fall will mark the full return of students to physical schools five days a week to restore some normal conditions before the pandemic. The Washington Post reports.
Captain Erin Sauber-Schatz, a member of the CDC COVID response team who helped write the guide, stated that their goal is to write a usable guide for all schools to “help children stay in the classroom and participate in any sports or extracurricular activities.”
“The message is true. If your child is eligible for the vaccine, now is the time to get the vaccine,” Sauber-Schatz Tell ABC News.
Photo: Knowledge Sharing
