Thousands of children in Chautauqua County walked through the front entrances of their school today without masks for the first time in nearly two years.
The number of new cases in Chautauqua County has been on the decline since early January, falling 86% since the week of January 8, according to county Health Department statistics. Couple that with the fact that 66.4% of children under the age of 18 have completed their COVID-19 vaccination series and one can see it’s time to stop requiring masks in schools.
There was a time when masks made sense in schools — and many children have worn them with no issues. But other children have seen their development stunted with masks, particularly in areas like speech development. With the availability of vaccines for school-age children there is little reason to continue a school mask requirement with so few COVID cases circulating.
We’re sure this is not the last time this issue will come up. It’s likely there will be a push for a mask mandate again in the early winter, when flu and COVID will rear their ugly head and cases will surge.
But at least, for now, school is resuming in something resuming normal. It’s been far too long.
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