Walensky tells Congress CDC masking guidance for schools isn’t going away
Abigail Adcox
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky told lawmakers on Wednesday that the agency would continue to recommend masks be worn in schools in certain areas if community levels of COVID-19 are high.
Walensky indicated that the CDC has no plans to update its existing masking guidance as the country begins to treat the COVID-19 virus as an endemic threat. The CDC recommends that schools implement prevention strategies, including masking, when high levels of COVID-19 hospital admissions and cases are tracked in the community or an outbreak in the school is identified.
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“Our masking guidance doesn’t really change with time. What it changes with is disease,” Walensky said at a joint subcommittee hearing for the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “So when there’s a lot of disease in the community, we recommend that those communities and those schools mask. When there’s less disease in the community, we recommend that those masks can come off.”
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) grilled Walensky about the policies, arguing that masking policies take a mental and emotional toll on children.
“CDC still recommends masks in schools for all ages, even though the emotional, mental, physical, and educational toll masking has had on our kids is widely recognized,” said Rodgers.
Walensky later cited data obtained by the CDC that showed school districts that did not take preventive measures, including masking, when recommended had more children getting sick and missing school than those that had taken the recommendations. She also noted that most of the country is currently reporting low or moderate COVID-19 community levels, and as such, masks aren’t recommended in those areas.
Walensky said earlier in the hearing that the agency had received feedback from 50 outside stakeholders, including parents, teachers, and school staff, when drafting its COVID-19 guidance for schools.
Research has suggested that young children are at a low risk of death from COVID-19 compared to other age groups.
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Wednesday’s hearing revolved around the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in which lawmakers were at times highly critical of how the CDC, National Institutes of Health, and other agencies handled it.
It follows the Biden administration’s announcement earlier this month that it plans to unwind the COVID-19 emergencies on May 11 and transition the COVID-19 response to the private sector.