“I think he made the call that he thought was best:” DE health officials weigh in on mask mandate lifting in schools

DELAWARE — Putting an end to the mask mandate in Delaware Public Schools is a decision Governor John Carney made Monday, and now health officials are weighing in.

“I think he made the call that he thought was best in the best interest of the children,” Wayne A. Smith, President and CEO of the Delaware Healthcare Association, said.

“I think it helps us a lot with that hopefulness and optimism,” Dr. John Fink, VP for Quality and Quality Medical Affairs for Bayhealth, said.

Governor Carney said the mask requirement in place at public and private K through 12 schools and child care facilities will expire March 31st. While we can’t predict where the pandemic will be by then, health officials said we’ve learned some key lessons so far.

“To take a mask off in a situation when we are not completely out of the woods yet it might put other people at risk,” Dr. Fink said.

Governor Carney said the March 31st expiration date will allow parents time to get their school-age kids vaccinated, a decision more health experts would like to see.

“I think the number of vaccinated kids are underperforming regionally and nationally, so I think there’s still some concern about whether they are safe, whether they are really effective,” Dr. Fink said.

Even with that in mind, health officials we spoke with agree the seriousness of the Omicron strain of the virus is diminishing.

“There’s less cases, less hospitalizations, we can expect that among all age groups, so I think the Governor was trying to be prudent in pushing out the expiration of the school mask mandate for a number of weeks,” Smith said.

The First State’s Governor also said the mandate lift will give districts and schools time to consider local mask requirements, but Dr. Fink said when making that decision school leaders should look at the full scope of the situation and use mandates when appropriate.

“Changes in mandates and requirements certainly don’t mean an end to anything and I think we still want to be super vigilant about our own situation,” Dr. Fink said.

We did reach out to Delaware school districts to get their opinion on that mask mandate being lifted, but at this time they did not want to comment.