BUFFALO, N.Y. — Just about every school allows students to take their masks off for a short time while in the classroom. However, after the complaint from someone in the Williamsville School district about the breaks, the Erie County Health Commissioner fired off a letter to the superintendent.
Dr. Gale Burstein said in a letter dated November 5, 2021, the state doesn't allow for mask breaks, but she highlighted the state's guidance intentionally omitted the opportunity for mask breaks and provided that schools that permit them, local health officials are permitted to enforce regulations as they determine necessary.
Mark Cornell, the Superintendent of Hamburg Schools and president of the Erie-Niagara Schools Superintendents Association said, "no one has taken their (the state) silence on the issue on mask breaks as a directive that mask breaks be discontinued and there's been no public clarification on the department of Health on their guidance."
He said the original guidance in 2020 allowed for mask breaks and the 2021 guidance had no reference to it.
"I think people are just hard-pressed to understand given where we are in the arc of the pandemic," Cornell said.
Late Tuesday, afternoon, Dr. Burstein issued the following statement:
To clarify the correspondence that the Erie County Department of Health (ECDOH) sent to the Williamsville Central School District last week, and address the subsequent reactions from school superintendents and parents, ECDOH does not intend to take enforcement measures against schools that are providing students with masks breaks during the school day.
Our county’s current case rates and high totals of new daily cases – the highest since the wave of cases in April 2021 – give our department cause for deep concern. Proper and consistent use of masks is an important way to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission, but our department’s primary focus continues to be education, outreach, testing, and vaccination efforts – not punitive measures.
ECDOH joins with parents and school administrators in wanting to maximize in-person learning, prevent illness among our county’s youngest residents, and bring a safe and quick end to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an opportunity to remind parents and caregivers that full vaccination against COVID-19 provides a protective benefit for children ages 5 and older, and eliminates the need for quarantine if that child is a COVID-19 close contact and remains asymptomatic.
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