Schools reopening proves wearing masks works

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(CNN) - As

schools begin classes across the United States, public health experts are warning that the policy surrounding the use of masks could hamper the country's fight against COVID-19.

But the real-life evidence on the use of masks leaves little doubt about their effectiveness.

In some places where schools have been open for a while, like Georgia and Hawaii, public health experts watch what happens when schools follow science: classes continue without interruption as long as staff and students wear masks.

But when staff and students fail to do so, COVID-19 can spread, forcing people to stay home in quarantine and return classes to virtual.

This week alone, several schools have closed, at least temporarily, in Georgia, Indiana and Mississippi due to group outbreaks among students and staff.

• The debate over masks in Tennessee schools is heightened amid the local council's demand for them to be used in elementary schools

On Wednesday, at a Cobb County elementary school in the Atlanta suburbs, fifth graders were sent home for virtual learning due to the high number of COVID-19 cases, according to an email from the school district sent. to parents and obtained by CNN. Masks are optional for students and school staff, according to the district's website, but there is physical distancing in classrooms when possible.

"This morning, based on our district protocols and under the direction of the Public Health Department in coordination with district leaders, we have had to make the difficult decision to move our 5th grade classes to virtual learning due to the pandemic. ongoing covid-19 and high numbers of positive cases, "says the email from East Side Elementary.

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Students will learn virtually until Friday, August 20 and will return to their classrooms the following Monday.

Glascock County Consolidated School in Gibson, Georgia is also in virtual classes through at least August 20.

In the first week of school, nine students and four staff members tested positive and 99 students and 11 staff members had to go into quarantine.

In Indiana, Scott County School District 1 told parents Tuesday that "due to the high rate of positive cases and the very high rate of students in quarantine" it would switch to virtual teaching beginning Wednesday.

• Increase in cases of covid-19 in classrooms causes school districts to return to virtual classes and change the rules of use of masks

Several schools in Lamar County, Mississippi, switched to virtual learning before the school board voted to maintain a hybrid teaching model.

During a council meeting Monday, Superintendent Steven Hampton said that while he believes face-to-face learning is better, a hybrid model would help prevent all schools from switching to the virtual model.

Politics, but not masks, in the classroom

The National Education Association, the largest union of teachers in the United States, has closely followed the reopening of the colleges.

"Where schools have highly communicative and collaborative relationships with educators, parents, and community members, and have an almost constant system of communication about the factors surrounding their safety plans and their reopening, things are getting better, "Kim Anderson, executive director of the National Education Association, told CNN.

"In places where they don't communicate well and where politicians try to strip communities of their ability to try to protect themselves, things are not going well."

• Biden to the governors of Florida and Texas: "If you are not going to help us, get out of the way"

The implementation of the requirements for the use of masks in schools has become a subject of politicized debate in some states of the country.

As of last week, at least seven states - Arkansas, Arizona, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah - bar districts from requiring the use of masks in schools.

However, some efforts have been made to combat it.

In Arkansas, a county circuit judge temporarily blocked the implementation of the state law prohibiting the use of masks in schools, in response to lawsuits brought by a school district and parents.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott bans the use of masks, but two judges have issued restraining orders temporarily blocking the application of Abbott's decree.

• ANALYSIS |

  Children are victims of the new Republican attempt to politicize the pandemic

Meanwhile, there is an ongoing battle in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis issued an executive order directing health and education departments to let parents decide whether students wear masks.

His office said Monday that the state board of education could withhold the salaries of superintendents and school board members who ignore the governor's decree, which effectively prohibits mask-wearing mandates.

Public health officials have urged schools and parents to keep the policy out of the classroom.

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health, implored parents Sunday to see masks for what they really are.

"It is not a political statement or an invasion of their freedoms. This is a life-saving medical device, and asking children to wear a mask is uncomfortable, but children are quite resilient," Collins told George Stephanopoulos of ABC on This Week.

"If we don't have masks in schools, this virus will spread more widely. It will probably cause outbreaks in schools and children will have to re-learn at a distance, which is what we really want to avoid," Collins said.

Follow science and stay in school

Several studies have shown that masks are effective in reducing the spread of COVID-19.

In June, a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that other mitigation measures, such as physical distancing and hand washing, are "insufficient on their own" to curb the pandemic without also using the face mask.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said last week during a forum in Boston that authorities monitor each jurisdiction and track outbreaks that occur in camps and schools.

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"The places that have a problem, the places that have diseases that are transmitted in schools, are the places that are not taking prevention strategies, the places that are not wearing masks," Walensky said.

"The places where children are seen in the hospital, the places where images of children are seen in the hospital, are all the places that are not taking mitigation strategies to keep our children safe."

It's like adding gasoline to a fire

Dr. Andrew Pavia, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah and an expert with the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told CNN that it is not yet possible at this time to make predictions about how the year will turn out. school.

"We hope that for school systems that are not implementing universal mask use and that are in communities with high levels of transmission can anticipate the spread in schools. It may take several weeks to judge the full impact," Pavia wrote in an email. email to CNN.

"Predictions are challenging, but we expect school districts that employ tiered strategies as recommended by the CDC to have a relatively successful school year."

Dr. Bayo Curry-Winchell, regional medical director and family physician at Carbon Health in Reno, Nevada, anticipates that more school districts will require the use of face masks, covid-19 testing, and other mitigation efforts in the coming month. or less.

"The Independent School Districts of Dallas and Austin challenge even Texas Governor Greg Abbott's ban on imposing the use of masks on all students, staff and visitors," he said.

"In regions where state or city officials do not enforce mask-wearing orders, school districts will have to take the lead."

Experts are calling for these prevention measures to be taken now to prevent an increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations of children later on.

As of Tuesday, an average of 203 children with Covid-19 were admitted to U.S. hospitals each day for the past week, according to CDC data.

This represents an increase of more than 21% compared to the previous week in terms of new daily hospitalizations among patients with covid-19 up to 17 years of age.

Cases of children with covid-19 increase in the US 0:59

At the end of July, an internal CDC document noted that the delta variant of the coronavirus that is increasing in the United States appears to cause a more serious illness and can spread as easily as chickenpox, detailing that a person infected with the delta variant could be contagious. the virus to another five or eight people on average.

With chickenpox, each infected person can infect, on average, eight to nine other people.

Schools that haven't opened their doors yet, but are preparing to do so in the coming weeks, should know that children are at risk of getting sick, Dr. Purvi Parikh, an allergist and immunologist at NYU Langone Health in New York, told CNN. York and spokesperson for the Allergy and Asthma Network.

"Schools should be very concerned, as children are not only getting infected, but sick enough to fill pediatric hospitals. Also, many children are still not vaccinated," Parikh wrote, adding that he urges vaccinations. to all who qualify and I would recommend the use of masks and physical distancing in classrooms.

"We will see more cases and outbreaks. Even before the pandemic we saw an increase in viral infections and hospitalizations when schools reopened due to flu, RSV and other viruses. Now with a highly contagious variant in a pandemic , it's like adding gasoline to a fire, "Parikh wrote.

"Children need to learn in person, let's help them do it safely."

CNN's Mallory Simon, Maria Cartaya and Shawn Nottingham contributed to this report.

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