Students should wear masks and practice social distancing at school to ensure safe in-person learning when they return to classrooms this fall, top U.S. doctors said Tuesday.
In the United States, just 30% of 12- to 17-year-olds are fully vaccinated, and younger kids likely won’t receive their vaccine shots until well into the school year. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other top doctors are thus worried that the delta variant could sweep through U.S. schools when kids across the country make their return.
“I do think that mask mandates or universal masking in the school setting should be enforced … there are still a lot of very susceptible individuals that will be attending school in person,” Dr. Tina Tan, professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University, said on a call Tuesday hosted by the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
