What you should know
- New York City schools will end their outdoor mask mandates beginning Monday, but face coverings will still be required for all students, staff and visitors inside buildings, Chancellor David Banks announced Friday. .
- The developments come on the same day the CDC is expected to release federal guidance on mask wearing, saying in part that most Americans don’t need to wear masks indoors in public places.
- The new recommendations are part of an overall shift in focus by the Biden administration, which is shifting from a focus on containing infections to mitigating serious illness and deaths related to COVID-19, the AP reported.
—
NEW YORK — New York City schools will end their outdoor mask mandates beginning Monday, but face coverings will still be required for all students, staff and visitors inside buildings, it announced Friday. Chancellor David Banks.
Other basic COVID protocols, such as increased ventilation, distancing when possible, distribution of test kits, and daily health screenings, will also remain in place for now.
“Throughout the pandemic, our schools have remained some of the safest spaces for our students and staff, thanks to our standard health and safety protocol,” Banks said in a statement. “I am very pleased to be able to make this exciting announcement and allow students and staff to safely remove their masks when outdoors in New York City public schools.”
A spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers, one of the most powerful unions representing the city’s school workers, supports the plan, saying in a statement: “It is the next step in the school system’s careful evaluation of COVID”.
The developments come on the same day the CDC is expected to release federal guidance on mask wearing, saying in part that most Americans don’t need to wear masks indoors in public places. The new recommendations are part of an overall shift in focus by the Biden administration, which is shifting from a focus on containing infections to mitigating serious illness and deaths related to COVID-19, the AP reported.
A growing number of states have already eased guidance on wearing masks, or scrapped the rules altogether, amid rapid declines in new infections linked to the omicron variant and continued slowdowns in related hospitalization and death rates. with COVID.
Schools are one place in New York where mandates have dragged on, even as New Jersey looks to lift its indoor mask-wearing rules early next month. Gov. Kathy Hochul has said she would consider doing the same across New York state, assuming children return to school after the mid-winter break without severe new COVID spikes, though individual districts have always been allowed. implement stricter rules.
–
