Oregon and PPS must mandate masks in schools this fall

California and Washington are doing it. It's time for Oregon to get with the program. Both, the Health Department of Washington State and California, are requiring face coverings for students and staff in k-12  schools regardless of vaccination status. Meanwhile, Oregon's Governor Kate Brown ended the mask mandate by executive order last month. Instead of being a courageous leader and prioritizing safety and prevention, Portland Public Schools has shamefully entirely dropped the mask mandate for high school students and staff in summer school, merely encouraging face coverings for the unvaccinated. 

Any decision to make face coverings optional in large indoor group settings at this point in the pandemic is dangerous. Rather than strongly advising face coverings for all students, Oregon Health Authority needs to require it, considering the highly contagious Delta variant is rapidly becoming the dominant strain across the U.S. and causing infections among teens and young adults to skyrocket throughout Europe. 

Lifting the mask mandate also goes against the trend in many other parts of the world where stringent health measures to limit its spread have recently been reintroduced. As CNBC reports, "Authorities in Australia, South Africa and Asia have recently reintroduced curfews or other measures to curb rising delta outbreaks. Japan just declared a coronavirus state of emergency in Tokyo and banned spectators at the Olympics."

Why is it too soon to pretend the pandemic is over? We are nowhere near herd immunity status. No children under 12 have yet been vaccinated. New COVID infection numbers are ticking up. In fact, as Forbes reports, 37.4 new Covid-19 infections per 100,000 people were reported nationwide in the week ending Saturday, up from 28.7. Additionally, the risk of long-term negative health effects for those who survive COVID are significant. Studies have found that 1 in 3 of those who survive COVID-19 suffer from long-term neurological and psychiatric disorders. Increasingly children are needing hospitalization and becoming pediatric long-haulers. 

Closely monitoring the way the virus has been behaving in Israel, the country with the highest percentage of fully vaccinated people, is important in how we understand and respond to the evolving virus. In Israel, the number of school-aged COVID patients has just tripled, and this rise is tied to the Delta variant. We are finding out that even a sizable number of fully vaccinated folks are testing positive for the Delta variant. At least half of those infected with the Delta variant during a recent outbreak in schools in two cities in Israel, were fully vaccinated. 

Face coverings are one of the most effective mitigation strategies for fighting the virus in addition to social distancing, vaccination, ventilation, frequent mandatory asymptomatic testing, and robust contact tracing. It just makes sense to implement an across-the-board mandate for all staff and students to wear face covering in schools. If we don't, we prolong the pandemic and encourage the virus to mutate while becoming more potent and dangerous. We also increase the danger for our most vulnerable community members and risk losing disproportionately high number of families of color (especially Black & Asian) to homeschooling and online charter schools for safety reasons.

Prioritizing the well-being of the people in the face of a global pandemic requires bold, broad, consistent public health policy. Oregon needs to follow California and Washington's lead and institute a face covering mandate in schools for the fall, no ifs or buts about it.

In the local context, this moment is Portland Public Schools' chance to operationalize and model equity and concern for children and other members of the most vulnerable communities in our city. We are watching to see who PPS leadership is catering to in its top-down decisions. One thing is clear. The pandemic is still here and it is time not to throw caution to the wind.