CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WV News) — On Tuesday, Gov. Jim Justice said he does not currently support a mask mandate for the state’s schools.
Justice, during his COVID-19 press briefing, said that while the start of school is still too far off to make a definitive decision, the state of the pandemic in West Virginia doesn’t presently warrant a blanket mask mandate for students.
“Things would have to change off the charts for me to support something that would require masks for our kids, where we are today,” he said. “We’ll see as we get closer, but where I’m at, I could no way today support a statewide mandate for our kids. I just couldn’t do it, not today.”
Guidance about masks in schools will be released before the school year starts at the end of August, Justice said.
“You’ll have all the education community weighing in, all the medical community weighing in,” he said. “The big thing that you’ll have going on is more information. As we get closer and closer, we’ll have more information.”
Earlier in the briefing Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s COVID-19 czar, discussed recently released recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and American Academy of Pediatrics about masks in schools.
“The CDC recommends that if people are fully vaccinated and two weeks out, that they aren’t required to wear masks in the classroom,” he said.
“But they also said that if you can’t determine the status of all people in the classroom or if you have people who have not been vaccinated, and the prevalence of the virus is high, then it is reasonable to have everyone wear masking,” he said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends all children 2 and older, regardless of vaccine status, should wear masks, while the CDC says unvaccinated students should wear masks but those vaccinated do not need to.
Both reports address concerns about the Delta variant of COVID-19, Marsh said.
“I think there is a lot of consideration being done right now that is really focused on the risk of the new variant, the Delta variant, and the fact that it seems to spread so much more rapidly,” he said. “Again, it has a reproductive value of five to eight, which means one person infected is likely to infect five to eight new people.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, talked about the differences between the American Academy of Pediatrics and CDC recommendations during an interview with “CBS This Morning.”
“The reason for what the Academy did was because of the high degree of infection dynamics that we’re seeing. If you look at the map right now, there’s an uptick in cases in virtually all the states in the United States, and for that reason, they want to go the extra mile to make sure the children are protected in school.”
Fauci talked more generally about the state of the pandemic, and he noted the importance of being vaccinated.
“Even though a lot of people are vaccinated, a lot of people are not vaccinated, and those are the ones that are getting infected. In fact, there’s a striking statistic that people should really pay attention to: 99.5% of all the deaths due to COVID-19 are among unvaccinated people,” he said.
Facui said he hopes that statistic can help showcase the importance of getting vaccinated.
Senior Staff Writer Charles Young can be reached at 304-626-1447 or cyoung@theet.com
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