Health Experts Say PA School Districts Should Lift Mask Mandates

PENNSYLVANIA — As cases continue to drop in Pennsylvania and around the region, health experts say that school districts should lift their mask mandates as long as local numbers are falling as well.

The recommendation comes in the latest update from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia COVID-19 PolicyLab. The team of doctors and healthcare policy leaders there says that it's not a matter of if masking works — they say it does — but simply whether it is necessary in districts that are already seeing sharp declines.

And much of the region is in decline, just a month after cases were at record high levels.

"We acknowledge that a transition away from mitigation requirements, such as moving from mask mandates to mask-optional policies, may lead to anxiety across some school communities," the Lab said. "In that context, we offer perspective as to when and how schools might consider making this transition and how families might navigate their own choices in response."

Pennsylvania has not had a mask mandate in school in place ever since former Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam's order was ruled unconstitutional last year. Gov. Tom Wolf's administration appealed, but the state Supreme Court upheld the ruling. Beam resigned days after the ruling, and control of school masking went back to individual districts.

While some districts either immediately lifted their mask order or have lifted it since, others left it in place through the omicron surge and still now, out of caution.

Other states are moving to lift their mandates. Connecticut will lift theirs on Feb. 28, and New Jersey will lift theirs on March 7. The Pennsylvania Department of Health has not changed their formal guidance, but CHOP's latest recommendation is clear.

"In our own community, weekly testing of all school staff, which has continued in the School District of Philadelphia as part of their safety protocols, has revealed that rates for asymptomatic infections have quickly dropped to 1 in 200 individuals, from 1 in 4 the week after Christmas," the Lab added. "And as case incidence has dropped abruptly, regional adult hospital census has also dropped by half, and pediatric hospital census by nearly 80% in the last couple of weeks."

CHOP did note that districts in towns that are still seeing high case numbers, or areas that still have public mask mandates in place, should keep their own school mandates in place.