>>14499261

Masks required in Pa. schools, Gov. Tom Wolf announces

Masks must be worn inside all preK-12 schools, both public and private, and licensed child care centers beginning next Tuesday. “Doing nothing is going to mean more sick kids,” the governor said.

https://www.inquirer.com/news/pa-schools-mask-mandate-covid-tom-wolf-20210831.html

Masks will be required in all Pennsylvania schools, Gov. Tom Wolf said Tuesday, announcing a mandate days after the Republican-led legislature rejected his call to pass one via legislation.

Aiming to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in schools, the order issued by the Department of Health requires face coverings indoors in all preK-12 schools, both public and private, and licensed child care centers beginning next Tuesday.

“This is a necessary step to keep our students and teachers safe and in the classroom where they all need to be and where we want them all to be,” the governor said at a news conference in Harrisburg. “Doing nothing right now to stop COVID-19, that’s just not an option.”

“Doing nothing is going to mean more sick kids,” Wolf added. “It’s going to mean more days out of school. It is going to mean more grief for our communities, and more problems for our economy.”

The mandate is a reversal for the Wolf administration, which had previously said it would leave decisions about how to reopen up to individual districts. In announcing the decision in a statement, the governor cited misinformation about mask-wearing that he said was “pressuring and intimidating school districts to reject mask policies,” and he said his office had received many calls and messages from parents of young children concerned about mask-optional policies.

Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam also pointed to a 277% rise in cases among Pennsylvania children 17 and under between mid-July and August, and said more than 5,000 students in the commonwealth had already tested positive for the virus in the first days of the school year. She said four mask-optional school districts had football games canceled Friday night due to outbreaks.

“The reason for this is the delta variant, which now makes up more than 98% of COVID cases in Pennsylvania,” Beam said. “Now as students are heading back into the classroom for the new school year, we need to take extra steps to protect them and preserve in-person education,” as well as sports and other extracurricular activities.

Pushback to the order came swiftly, with House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff saying he and his fellow Republicans were considering legal action. The Centre County representative called the decision an “ill-advised statewide mandate that deprives Pennsylvania communities of local control and community self-determination in public health decisions.”

The order comes as many are already back in session, some with masks required and some without, and the rest are poised to start within days. Certain districts have already spent months battling over the mask question, which has stirred heated conflict among some parents.

“You could argue we should have done it, Pennsylvania should have done it earlier,” Wolf said.

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>>14499403

The order didn’t come with enforcement, with Wolf and Ortega saying that it would be up to schools and districts to enforce it.

Wolf said he believed the desire to “do the right thing,” as well as pressure from parents, would lead schools to follow the mandate, despite acknowledging that the mandate was only being imposed because not enough districts had adopted mask policies. Only half of the districts in the state had done so, he said.

The need to wear masks — heightened by the rapid spread of the delta variant, the approach of cooler weather, and the inability to vaccinate children under 12 — reflects the quickly changing nature of the pandemic.

As the variant causes cases counts to rise and the American vaccination rate has failed to rise high enough to suppress the pandemic, mitigation measures have been reinstated, and events many hoped would restore a sense of normalcy — such as the start of an in-person school year — are being altered.

“Unfortunately due to the increase in the delta variant, we are already beginning to see that in-person school can lead to high volume of exposure with rapid spread of infection,” said Trude Haecker, president of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who noted that many schools were able to remain open last school year in large part due to mask mandates.

Pennsylvania joins 14 other states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia in requiring the face coverings indoors for schools, according to a New York Times tracker. New Jersey and Delaware weeks ago put mask mandates in place for K-12 schools and child care centers; they are also required in the Philadelphia school district, as well as all indoor public businesses in the city.

Other states have prohibited school masking requirements. On Monday, federal officials announced that five states with such bans are under investigation on civil rights grounds by the U.S. Department of Education.

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>>14499457

>No telling how many diseases might be cured with them.

((they)) don't want us to know about that either