The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday recommended even vaccinated people wear masks in public settings in areas with high transmission of COVID-19 and in schools regardless of community transmission rates.
But the Oregon Department of Education will not immediately require the state’s public schools to adopt indoor mask mandates, even as thousands of students are enrolled in summer programs, many of which are being conducted in-person.
And it’s unclear whether it will do so at all.
The new CDC recommendation comes a week after the American Association of Pediatrics similarly urged schools to require students, staff and faculty wear masks in the fall as a means of ensuring kids return to in-person instruction and don’t get COVID-19 or spread it to others.
“We need to prioritize getting children back into schools alongside their friends and their teachers — and we all play a role in making sure it happens safely,” Sonja O’Leary, chair of the group’s council on school health, said in a statement.
Oregon’s top education agency may update its guidelines. In the meantime, spokesperson Marc Siegel said, individual districts “have the flexibility to follow CDC recommendations immediately.”
The Oregon Health Authority similarly urged but will not require the state’s residents to wear masks in public indoor spaces, citing the surge in coronavirus transmissions fueled by the spread of the contagious delta variant.
The state reported more than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, roughly as many as officials were announcing weekly at the start of the month. The Oregon Health Authority also reported 259 active hospitalizations due to COVID-19, or 52 more than Monday.
But the surge in cases and hospitalizations hasn’t prompted state or local officials anywhere in Oregon to renew any of the mitigation measures they utilized last year.
Officials in California’s Los Angeles County, citing a surge in infections, recently began requiring masks in indoor public places again. In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy urged that state’s residents to get vaccinated in order to stave off new mask mandates.
Gov. Kate Brown in late June lifted all of the state’s coronavirus restrictions in late June, commemorating the occasion during a pep rally at Providence Park.
Included in those restrictions were the pandemic protocols the state required of its public schools for much of the last 18 months. The Oregon Department of Education released its latest guidance for schools last week, emphasizing its recommendations were just that.
Those guidelines leave it up to individual districts to decide whether to require students, staff and faculty to wear masks inside school buildings but “strongly advises” they do so.
So far, West Linn-Wilsonville is the only Portland-area district to announce it won’t mandate masks in its classrooms.
The Lake Oswego school board voted to require students younger than 12 to wear masks indoors.
Coquille School District Superintendent Tim Sweeney said parents, especially in rural areas such as his, will push back hard if the state or districts require masks, the Oregon School Boards Association’s Jake Arnold reported.
“They’ve hit the wall with all of this,” Sweeney said. “I think you will see superintendents lose their jobs at an alarming rate if they require masks.”
NOTE: Due to an editing error, the original version of this article indicated the state guidelines were scheduled to be updated next week. In fact, the guidelines issued July 22 are considered final. The Oregonian/OregonLive regrets the error.
--Eder Campuzano | 503-221-4344 | @edercampuzano | Eder on Facebook
Eder is The Oregonian’s education reporter. Do you have a tip about Portland Public Schools? Email ecampuzano@oregonian.com.
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As CDC urges indoor mask use in all schools, Oregon stops short of requiring them - OregonLive
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