Kids Can Bring Covid-19 Home and Infect Others
Findings from a new study don’t bode well for the coming school year, and this research predates the worrisome Delta variant
With the school year starting soon, debates are raging across the country about whether students should wear masks or not. Both the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that all staff and students wear masks, regardless of whether they’re vaccinated or not.
Yet only eight U.S. states are requiring students to wear masks, and eight other states have made it legally impossible for any schools to require masks. The rest of the country has made masking optional, and from all the messages I’ve been getting over the past week, it seems a huge number of school districts are simply letting families decide on their own if their students will wear masks.
Here’s the problem: Wearing a mask only offers moderate protection to the person who’s wearing it. To get the most protection, everyone around you needs to be wearing masks, too. If your child is wearing a mask in the classroom, they’re not nearly as well protected against infection unless everyone else masks up. And even if that child develops a mild infection, they can transmit it to other family members — including family members who are…
