Students in New York will be given a COVID-19 test kit before winter break later this month and then again when they return, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Wednesday, and the results will help inform her decision on whether to extend or drop the mask mandate for schools.
The goal is for parents to test their students twice — the day after they return from break, which ends Feb. 28, and then three days later, Hochul said.
By early March, the governor said her administration would take into account those results, as well as other metrics, including cases per 100,000, the positivity rate and hospital admissions, to make a decision on what the protocols will be going forward.
“After the break, after we’ve had kids tested, we are going to make an assessment, that first week in March,” Hochul said.
“We’ll look at that combined picture; there will not be one number that says ‘yes or no.’ There’s going to be an assessment of all these factors that have guided us throughout, guided us to the decision we made today, and that will give me the comfort as well as the conversations I had yesterday just on a Zoom call [with education leaders]” to make a decision, she added.
The emergency regulation for schools had been scheduled to expire on Feb. 21.
“I agree with the ongoing use of mandates in schools,” said Sean Clouston, associate professor of public health at Stony Brook University. “We can choose to wear masks as adults, and now it is up to us to know the risk of people near us. But schools pack children together, and most are still unvaccinated.”
With Bart Jones
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