Associated Press Vaccinated teachers and students don't need masks, CDC says

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/va...eiJ?li=BBnb7Kz

NEW YORK (AP) — Vaccinated teachers and students don't need to wear masks inside school buildings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday in relaxing its COVID-19 guidelines.

© Provided by Associated Press FILE - In this Thursday, March 11, 2021 file photo, desks are arranged in a classroom at an elementary school in Nesquehoning, Pa. In the fall of 2021, vaccinated teachers and students should no longer wear masks inside school buildings and no one need bother with them outside, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday, July 9, 2021, in relaxing its COVID-19 guidelines. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File) The changes come amid a national vaccination campaign in which children as young as 12 are eligible to get shots, as well as a general decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths.

“We're at a new point in the pandemic that we're all really excited about," and so it's time to update the guidance, said Erin Sauber-Schatz, who leads the CDC task force that prepares recommendations designed to keep Americans safe from COVID-19.
The nation's top public health agency is not advising schools to require shots for teachers and vaccine-eligible kids. And it's not offering guidance on how teachers can know which students are vaccinated or how parents will know which teachers are immunized.
That's probably going to make for some challenging school environments, said Elizabeth Stuart, a John Hopkins University public health professor who has children in elementary and middle schools.
“It would be a very weird dynamic, socially, to have some kids wearing masks and some not. And tracking that? Teachers shouldn't need to be keeping track of which kids should have masks on,” she said.
Another potential headache: Schools should continue to space kids — and their desks — 3 feet apart in classrooms, the CDC says. But the agency emphasized that spacing should not be an obstacle to getting kids back in schools. And it said distancing is not required among fully vaccinated students or staff.
All of this may prove hard to implement, and that's why CDC is advising schools to make decisions that make the most sense, Sauber-Schatz said.
The biggest questions will be at middle schools where some students are eligible for shots and others aren’t. If sorting vaccinated and unvaccinated students proves too burdensome, administrators might choose to just keep a masking policy in place for everyone.
“The guidance is really written to allow flexibility at the local level,” Sauber-Schatz said.
Indeed, in some of the nation’s largest school districts, widespread mask-wearing is expected to continue this fall. In Detroit’s public schools, everyone will be required to wear a mask unless everyone in the classroom has been vaccinated. Philadelphia will require all public school students and staff to wear masks inside buildings, even if they have been vaccinated. But masks won't be mandated in Houston schools.
What about requiring COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of school attendance? That's commonly done across the country to prevent spread of measles and other diseases.
The CDC has repeatedly praised such requirements, but the agency on Friday didn't recommend that measure because it is considered a state and local policy decision, CDC officials said.
Early in the pandemic, health officials worried schools might become coronavirus cauldrons that spark community outbreaks. But studies have shown that schools often see less transmission than the surrounding community when certain prevention measures are followed.
The new guidance is the latest revision to advice the CDC began making to schools last year.
In March, the CDC stopped recommending that children and their desks be spaced 6 feet apart, shrinking the distance to 3 feet, and dropped its call for use of plastic shields.
In May, the agency said Americans in general don’t have to be as cautious about masks and distancing outdoors, and that fully vaccinated people don’t need masks in most situations. That change was incorporated into updated guidance for summer camps — and now, schools.
The new schools guidance says:
—No one at schools needs to wear masks at recess or in most other outdoor situations. However, unvaccinated people are advised to wear masks if they are in a crowd for an extended period of time, like in the stands at a football game.
—Ventilation and handwashing continue to be important. Students and staff also should stay home when they are sick.
—Testing remains an important way to prevent outbreaks. But the CDC also says people who are fully vaccinated do not need to participate in such screening.
—Separating students into smaller groups, or cohorts, continues to be a good way to help reduce spread of the virus. But the CDC discouraged putting vaccinated and unvaccinated kids in separate groups, saying schools shouldn't stigmatize any group or perpetuate academic, racial or other tracking.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, called the new CDC guidance “an important roadmap for reducing the risk of COVID-19 in schools.”
She added: “Schools should be consistently and rigorously employing all the recommended mitigation strategies, including requiring masks in all settings where there are unvaccinated individuals present, and ensuring adequate ventilation, handwashing, and cleaning.”
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona pledged to work with schools to help them get kids back into classrooms.
“We know that in-person learning offers vital opportunities for all students to develop healthy, nurturing relationships with educators and peers, and that students receive essential supports in school for their social and emotional wellbeing, mental health, and academic success," he said in a statement.

Comment -
Devastating news from the CDC for control freak Teacher's Unions and fascist DPST LSM and nomenklatura.
Masks Not Needed - for vaccinated and - not stated - those who have had the Covid 19 disease and deferred vaccinatioin due to natural antibody production.

About 63% of all vaccine-eligible Americans — those 12 and older — have received at least one dose, and 53% are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. While vaccine remains scarce in much of the world, the U.S. supply is so abundant and demand has slumped so dramatically that shots sit unused.
The number of people who survived teh disease and are unvaccinated is poorly reported and unknown - due to lack of knowledge of asymptomatic and minimally symptomatic cases. Those cases are not reported and not counted - yet constitute a reserve of people resistant to the disease due to natural antibody production.

as a Guess- another 20 million in this cate4gory is easily possible. That might put the US into herd immunity levels - and we are seeing cases drop in most areas - as well as morbidity and mortality of teh Wuhan virus. It constitutes the achievement of herd immunity - and the end of teh pandemic.

A horrible loss for the fascist DPST party.

Of course - all hail fiden for the miraculous appearance of teh vaccine in America - with NO Contribution from the Trump adminstration. Operation Warp speed - is an oxymoron - declares the nomenklatura of teh fascist DPST party.

Fascist DPST nomenklatura are panicking - along with LSM - desperate to find a 'science' to confirm further lockdowns and imprisonment of Americans by fiat. We now see daily screams from the LSM of the 'highly contagious and deadly new strains" and that 'further lockdowns will be imposed to protect America from itself.

The push to destroy business and free enterprise in favor of a marxist government ownership and dictatorship is alive and well in teh DPST fascists.

When hospitals are emptied out due to the end of teh pandemic - the LSM will have to invent

new rationales for its favored dictators to keep America imprisoned under masks, social distancing, isolation, business and school closures - while openly defying their very own dictums of "Do what i say - Not what I Do"!

Fascist DPSR hypocrites.