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As the Omicron surge began to subside in many parts of the country, governors of New Jersey, Connecticut, and Delaware announced He said that they will remove the school mask requirements in the coming weeks.

But the movement to loosen these politically charged restrictions has divided scientists and public health experts. Some applauded the change.

“I think it’s perfectly appropriate that we start removing school mask rules now,” said Joseph Allen, a Harvard University researcher who studies indoor environmental quality, including in schools. “We are in a much better place than before and it’s time to update our strategies to reflect this moment.”

Others noted that the virus is still causing significant damage to the country, with cases as high as at its peak last winter and with more than 2,500 Americans dying every day. Some health experts said lifting school mask rules too soon could jeopardize the progress the country has made over the past few weeks.

“We’re just starting to get this under control,” said Seema Lakdawala, a respiratory virus researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, noting that many young children remain unvaccinated. “I don’t think we should abandon our interventions that are still useful.”

Experts agreed that mask instructions should not last forever and that authorities should clearly explain what criteria will be used when deciding when to remove masks. But there is still debate about what these criteria should be and whether certain places in the country meet them.

“We’re moving to a place where it would totally make sense to remove mask rules,” said epidemiologist Justin Lessler of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Maybe we’ll be there in two or three weeks. Personally, I’d like to see people wait until cases drop rather than anticipate a miscarriage at some future date.”

School mask guidelines have been among the most controversial public health measures implemented in response to the pandemic. Opponents of mask requirement often pointed to the lack of randomized, controlled studies on the effects of masking in schools and highlighted the shortcomings with specific studies documenting the benefits of masking.

For example, they noted that schools that require universal masking may differ in many ways from those that do not, and that in a world full of confounding factors, it is difficult to conclusively prove that mask-wearing reduces viral transmission in schools. .

But as scientists agree, a growing body of evidence—from lab experiments to real-world studies conducted around the world—suggests masking benefits in a variety of settings, including schools.

“You can spare any work,” said Linsey Marr, an aerosol scientist at Virginia Tech. However, “there is overwhelming evidence that masking has a beneficial, minor effect in reducing transmission in schools,” she said. (While the effect is small on average, individual students and teachers can gain more personal protection by wearing high-quality, snug-fitting masks, she said.)

Even experts who believe it’s time to remove the mask requirement in schools said such policies are an important strategy at certain stages of the pandemic. However, they note that the country is no longer in the position it was in 2020 during the first waves of the pandemic in the US.

Vaccines are now widely available for all adults and children ages 5 and older. Vaccines continue to protect against hospitalization and death, although Omicron can evade some of the body’s immune defenses, making breakthrough cases more likely.

Some scientists said that in communities where vaccination rates are high and the Omicron wave is declining, it makes sense for authorities to start considering removing mask requirements, including in schools.

An infectious disease specialist at Emory University, Dr. “When you don’t have a lot of viruses and you have a highly vaccinated population, you move from masking requirement to optional masking,” said Carlos del Rio.

Dr. del Rio recommended that communities also pay close attention to local hospitalization rates and capacity when making decisions about masking policies. He said it makes sense to remove the mask requirement if local hospitalization rates are below 10 new Covid admissions per 100,000 people per day and intensive care units are less than 80 percent full.

Harvard researcher Dr. Allen noted that hospitalization rates, already low for children, are falling in the Northeast. 0.4 entries per 100,000 peopleAccording to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is lower hospitalization rate for vaccinated adultsthose who can now typically eat without a mask.

“But we have stricter policies for children at the same risk, even for unvaccinated children at the same risk,” he said.

Dr. Allen said that keeping the mask in place beyond when it is mandatory risks undermining the public’s trust in health workers. He said that in the event of future fluctuations, authorities may need to renew school mask requirements, but remove them when conditions are better.

Dr. “Kids can tolerate it, and it’s okay to mask it when it’s necessary to do it,” Allen said. “But we shouldn’t do that for more than a second.”

Ideally, local authorities should be prepared to lift and re-enforce school mask rules as conditions change, experts said.

Zoe McLaren, a health policy expert at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy in Baltimore County, recommended that school officials conduct regular surveillance tests and be prepared to change mask policies to monitor whether the virus is prevalent in the school population. according to this.

“If schools are well ventilated and transmission is low in schools, then there will be few cases,” he said. “Then it would make more sense to remove the mask requirement at that school.”

But he noted that officials tend to be reluctant to make such frequent transitions.

States that have now lifted school mask rules may find it difficult to reintroduce them in the future, said Julia Raifman, a health policy expert at Boston University. Covid-19 US Government Policy database.

Mask policy was implemented in dozens of states in 2020, he said; Now, a few do. “So this shows how difficult it is to revert mask policies anywhere once masks are turned off,” he said.

And while the absolute risk for children is small, hospitalization rates for children increased during the Omicron surge, he noted.

Also, some scientists said school mask guidelines aren’t just about protecting children.

“People, I’m sure, will say it’s a mild illness in children, so why are we worried?” Dr. Lakdawala said. “The concern is that it may then continue to spread in our communities.”

Children who catch the virus at school can also infect more vulnerable adults, said epidemiologist Mercedes Carnethon of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Winter was the wrong time to lighten up masking in schools, she added.

“Removing masks now during the winter months when most interactions are closed is a mistake that will lead to school epidemics,” he wrote in an email.

He added that while it would be “ideal” for mask instructions to remain in place until children under the age of 5 are eligible for the vaccine, this may not be possible given how long vaccination clearance takes for younger children.

“I am aware of the urgency of identifying an off-ramp,” he said.

Removing the requirement to wear masks at school means that many parents have to make these risk-benefit calculations themselves and decide whether their children should continue to wear masks in class.

“What you want to think about is, is your child vaccinated?” said. “Does your child have underlying health conditions that could put them at higher risk? Is your child in a particularly crowded classroom with poor ventilation? All these factors will increase the risk.”

Research shows that particularly high-quality, snug-fitting masks can protect the wearer.

Dr. “If you’re looking for a good mask, focus on filtering and matching the two F’s,” Allen said.

While N95 masks are not designed for children, there are other respirators that come in child sizes, such as the KF94s. But even a well-fitting surgical mask or multi-layer fabric mask can help provide protection, the scientists said.

Dr. “Masks are most effective when everyone is wearing them,” Lessler said. “But individually they are still effective only when you wear them.”