HARTFORD — Vermont officials discouraged schools and businesses from relying on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for masking in a Tuesday news conference.
Instead, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott and Secretary of Education Dan French on Tuesday urged schools to stick with the state’s mask recommendations, which continue to say masks need not be required.
“One can get into an endless cycle of reacting and overreacting to data,” Scott said.
That stance conflicts with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations that people wear masks indoors in counties where COVID-19 levels are deemed to be “high,” which as of Wednesday included Vermont’s Windsor, Washington and Essex counties. The CDC says there are “medium” levels of COVID-19 in Vermont’s Orange County and New Hampshire’s Grafton and Sullivan counties, the other counties in the Upper Valley.
The CDC uses case rates of COVID-19 as well as hospital admissions and beds in use to determine the community levels of COVID-19. When COVID-19 levels drop to “medium” or “low,” the CDC only recommends masks for people who are immunocompromised or otherwise vulnerable to serious illness should they contract COVID-19.
Following the CDC’s guidelines, which are updated weekly on Thursdays, “promotes way too much instability in our schools,” French said in a recording of Tuesday’s news conference.
Hartford Superintendent Tom DeBalsi, in a Wednesday email, declined to comment on state officials’ Tuesday statements but said that the district is sticking with the mask requirement that it reinstituted on Monday after the CDC upgraded the level of COVID-19 in Windsor County to “high” last week.
“Our district has followed the recommendations of the (CDC) since the beginning of the pandemic,” DeBalsi wrote in a Sunday message to families about masks.
The suspension of Hartford schools’ mask requirement lasted just one week before it was reinstated. The Hartford School Board voted, 3-2, at a March 16 board meeting to suspend its mandate but left the door open to reinstating it should conditions change.
The reinstatement of the mask mandate in Hartford inspired a group of fewer than 10 people to gather outside Hartford High School on Monday morning holding signs that said: “Family choice, not school;” “No masks!;” and “Let children choose.” As students walked into the school some of the protesters shouted, “It’s not a state mandate, you don’t have to wear a mask if you don’t want to.”
Meanwhile, Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union Superintendent David Baker said in a Wednesday email that he agreed with state officials that abiding by CDC guidelines that might shift weekly would be “too disruptive.”
“I don’t want to go one week on and one week off,” he said.
Still, Baker said in a Monday message to families that schools in the Windsor area, where masks are optional, continue to be affected by COVID-19 cases. He said that two of the supervisory union’s schools were at “a critical staffing threshold” on Monday.
He urged families to continue to monitor for symptoms and clean their hands. He also encouraged those in “vulnerable population categories” to continue to wear masks. The supervisory union has KN95s available for employees and students at all schools, he said.
Elsewhere, the Windsor Central Supervisory Union, which includes Woodstock-area schools, is poised to stop requiring masks at its elementary schools starting Monday. Masks already are optional at Woodstock Middle/High School.
“We will continue to follow guidance from the Vermont Department of Health (VDH) in regards to COVID-19 cases,” Windsor Central Superintendent Sherry Sousa said in a Wednesday email. “If we experience an uptick in cases at any of our schools, we will share that with VDH and ask for recommendations which could include returning to mask wearing for a period of time.”
Vermont officials pointed to the state’s low incidence of serious illness during Tuesday’s news conference. On Tuesday, there were 12 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Vermont. During the news conference, Scott said just four of those were in the hospital “for COVID.”
“I think we’re doing pretty well,” he said.
In Windsor County, there had been 178 new cases of COVID-19 in the past two weeks, for a rate of 322 per 100,000 people, as of Wednesday. An ongoing outbreak at Springfield (Vt.) Rivers Nursing & Rehabilitation included a total of 62 cases as of Tuesday. There have been no COVID-19-related deaths announced in Windsor County in the past two weeks.
“I think it will be up and down,” Baker, the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union superintendent, said of cases affecting schools. “But we can still keep schools open, which is one of our priorities.”
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
