U.S. schools bring back mask mandates amid rising COVID-19 cases

U.S. COVID-19 is on the rise. This has led to a number of schools, particularly in Northeastern, to bring back recommendations and mask mandates, for the first times since the Omicron winter surge and as the country closes in on 1 million deaths due the pandemic.

The return of masking in schools is not nearly as widespread as earlier in the pandemic, particularly as the public’s worries over the virus have ebbed. Districts in Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts have brought back masks. Some Massachusetts residents also recommend them, even though the school year is ending.

Maine’s largest school district, in Portland, said this week masks would return, with Superintendent Xavier Botana saying that was the “safest course at this time” amid rising cases. Schools in Bangor, Maine also reintroduced a universal mask requirement.

High schools in Montclair, New Jersey and the suburbs around Pittsburgh announced that they will be resuming masking temporarily, but not before next week. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of the counties in the country considered to have “high” levels of COVID-19 are in the Northeast.

Authorities in Massachusetts are recommending that schools use masks for areas where there has been high levels of COVID-19 infection.

Reactions ranged from supportive and angry. On the Facebook page of Woodland Hills High School in suburban Pittsburgh, one woman called the change “#insane.”

Diana Martinez and Owen Cornwall, parents of a Graham and Parks School first-grader in Cambridge, Massachusetts have been following the advice to cover their daughter.

“We’re very happy about it. It gives us a little peace of mind,” saidMartinez, 42 years old, is a Tufts University Professor. “I think the parents generally trend toward wearing them and that gives us some comfort. It’s the same case at our pre-school. There will be a couple of parents who don’t mask their child, but we will be masking our child.”

Cornwall saidIt seems that there is a widespread consensus among school communities in favor of playing safe.

“We’re sort of lucky in this neighborhood, that they share our concerns with health,” saidCornwall, 37, is a visiting scholar at Tufts.

Johns Hopkins University data shows that daily reported cases are now at 79,000 in the United States. This is a 50% increase over the previous two weeks. That’s a fraction of where daily case counts stood earlier this year, when they topped 800,000.

The current case count is a huge undercount due to a significant downturn in testing, and the fact that tests are being done at home and not reported back to health departments.

An influential modeling group at the University of Washington in Seattle estimates that only 13% of cases are being reported to health authorities in the U.S. – which would mean an undercount of more than a half million new infections every day.

Despite the uptick in cases and the return to masking in a small number of schools, the response across the country has been largely subdued, reflecting the public’s exhaustion after more than two years of restrictions.

However, other than in schools, officials show little interest to return to mask mandates.

After becoming the first major American city to impose an indoor mask mandate, Philadelphia was forced to abandon it last month. This was in response to an increase of COVID-19 hospitalizations and cases.

The United States is on the verge of reaching 1 million deaths due to COVID-19. According to Johns Hopkins University, the pandemic has caused more than 6,000,000 deaths worldwide.

Hospital workers at Providence St. Joseph Hospital Orange in California who suffered through the worst pandemic episodes paused Wednesday to remember the sacrifices they made.

Patsy Brandenburger, the Intensive Care Unit Nurse Coordinator, was one of the many hospital caregivers to receive a blessing from Father Patrick Okonkwo (a hospital chaplain) during the Roman Catholic ceremony.

She spoke of the worst days of pandemic when the hospital was full of hundreds of patients including many on ventilators. Now, the hospital only has seven COVID-19 patients.

“The amount of patients we saw that passed away in the ICU was so, so, so hard. And just the families that couldn’t be there with them was extremely hard on all of us,” Brandenburger saidRemain strong.

Catalini reported from Trenton in New Jersey. Eugene Garcia, Patrick Whittle, and other Associated Press writers from Orange, California contributed to this report.