Hochul lifts school mask mandate effective Wednesday

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced she was lifting the state mask mandate for schools at a news briefing Sunday.

The easing of the requirement applies to children ages 2 and older, including those in child-care settings.

Counties, cities, school districts and even individual schools still can choose to keep a mask rule in place, however, and parents are free to send their children to school with masks on, the governor said.

Hochul cited falling Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations and guidance from medical experts as driving the policy change.

“I always had that sense, if we stick with the experts and the data, and let that be our guide, and not let criticism and politics intervene in this decision-making, we’ll end up in the right place,” Hochul told reporters. “And that is why I feel very confident that this is the time to lift the mask requirement.”

The end of the mask rule was demanded in recent weeks by a growing chorus of parents, school leaders and critics of public-health mandates.

Students, teachers and staff have been wearing face coverings in schools since they started the 2020-21 school year amid the pandemic.

Most who returned that September participated in what became known as "hybrid" learning, with half of students in a class attending on any given day, while the other half remained at home learning remotely.

Hochul ended the state’s mask mandate for indoor public spaces on Feb. 10, meaning people no longer had to wear a mask or show proof of vaccination when going into a restaurant or grocery store or just about any other business in the state.

When she lifted the mandate, she said it was possible the mask requirement in schools could be lifted March 7. She planned to look at certain metrics the week many students returned from the weeklong February break. Students return starting Monday.

Hochul wanted to examine reports of Covid-19 positive cases in students, cases per 100,000 population, percent positivity, general and pediatric hospital admissions, vaccination rates and global trends on the coronavirus.

She also wanted students to take a rapid test the day they returned to school and three days later.

But on Friday afternoon, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated their community Covid-19 levels from four to three levels: low, medium and high.

The levels are calculated looking at hospitalizations, hospital capacity and the number of cases in each county. And many counties that had been considered in the highest level now are at the medium level.

The CDC masking recommendations changed as well.

The only level where masks are recommended indoors in public, regardless of vaccination status – including in K-12 schools and other indoor community settings – is the highest level.

The CDC recommends those who are immunocompromised and are in medium- or high-level communities talk to their physician about wearing masks. Those who encounter vulnerable people should consider wearing a mask indoors, the CDC said.

Under the new federal metrics, 11 of New York's 62 counties are considered to have a high level of community transmission. The rest are low or medium.

Erie and Niagara counties are medium, while Cattaraugus and Allegany counties are the only Western New York counties considered on the low level.

Given the new CDC guidance and improving Covid-19 metrics, Hochul decided to act before March 7.

For example, Hochul said, statewide Covid-19 cases have fallen 98% in the seven weeks since their Omicron peak, from a seven-day average of 90,132 on Jan. 7 to 1,671 on Saturday.

The numbers for school-age children have shown a similar decline, from a rolling average of 14,167 positive tests on Jan. 18 to 229 on Saturday.

And hospitalizations, another closely watched data point, also have dropped sharply since the New Year, from 12,671 across the state on Jan. 11 to 1,911 on Saturday.

Hochul said the Omicron surge could have been worse, and lasted longer, if not for the mask mandates and other measures taken by her administration.

The governor also pointed to the state’s relatively high vaccination rate as another reason for optimism.

Students, parents and many educators have been saying for weeks, if not months, that the mandate should be lifted in schools.

Children are not as susceptible to Covid-19 infections and complications, and the masks harm children's ability to communicate, learn and bond with each other, critics said.

As masks became part of the culture wars, some parents and others attended local school board meetings unmasked, refusing to wear face coverings when asked.

Parents have filed lawsuits against the current governor and the previous governor over the mandate. It was overturned by a state Supreme Court justice in Nassau County, but the state is appealing that ruling.

“We withstood a lot of criticism, a lot of objections to this,” Hochul said, calling her decision “a huge thank you” to teachers, school leaders and school families.

Masks were first required in public places in New York in April 2020.

The state Department of Health under former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced last July that masks would no longer be required for summer school but that schools and districts could require them.

Cuomo lifted many Covid-19 restrictions, including the mask mandate in public places, last May and June. Hochul reinstated them when she took office and the Delta variant was starting to surge.

But pressure increased on Hochul earlier this month when the governors of surrounding states announced end dates for their school mask mandates.

A poll of 2,055 Buffalo teachers conducted by their union earlier this month found 55% supported keeping the masks on until the impact of the February break – when many teachers and students traveled out of town – could be determined. Forty percent supported ending the mask mandate immediately, and the rest had no opinion.

Hochul said the state will keep a close eye on results from testing as schools return from mid-winter break, continue to distribute millions of test kits, monitor Covid-19 metrics and push vaccinations and boosters.

“We are going to remain vigilant,” Hochul said.

Michael Cornell, president of the Erie Niagara Superintendents Association, said the decision was expected after the CDC changed its guidance on Friday. But he said the governor’s delay until Wednesday was not.

“The logic behind that is unclear to many superintendents, but that’s what she’s seen fit to do,” he said Sunday. “We appreciate families understanding that it puts us in a difficult position, and appreciate them sticking with us a couple more days and then we can make masks optional as of Wednesday.”

The change applies not only to students, teachers and staff, but also to visitors to schools, he added.

“It puts schools in line with every place else. If you want to wear a mask, you wear a mask. If you don’t want to wear a mask, you don’t, which makes sense,” Cornell added.

And he said every school leader expects that “everyone will be respected for their choice,” just as schools are already a “mosaic” of different views and opinions.

“We have to move past the mask-or-no-mask question, and move to the things that are really going to be important, which is focusing on the academic progress of our kids, focusing on the mental wellness of our kids, and seizing the return to normalcy that this represents after two long years of having to accommodate to the different aspects of the pandemic,” he said. “We’ve rolled with a lot of the punches in the last couple of years.”