Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced that all daycare, Pre-K through 12th-grade students will be required to wear masks during school hours during a press conference on Wednesday.
“This [mask] requirement extends to P-12 sports. Face coverings will be required for all indoor recreation, whereas outdoors, where transmission risks and rates are lower, athletes and coaches will not be required to mask,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker said that any school that needs masks can receive them from the state.
Illinois is home to 1.8 million children under the age of 12 who are not yet eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
With the Delta variant infecting the younger population at a greater rate and with people under 29 years old now accounting for 12 percent of COVID hospitalizations in June, Pritzker said the use of masks is the most effective tool to allow students to return to their classrooms safely while protecting them from the virus. Mask wearing will also help prevent unvaccinated students from transmitting the virus to more vulnerable members of their broader communities.
“Given our current trajectory in hospitalizations and ICU usage, we have a limited amount of time right now to stave off the highest peaks of this surge going into the fall,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “To combat the Delta variant, Illinois is taking three key steps to protect our state’s 1.8 million unvaccinated children under 12 and their families, residents and staff of long-term care facilities, and those highly vulnerable people who rely upon state employees for their daily care. I also encourage every Illinoisan who is eligible to get vaccinated as soon as possible, as millions of their neighbors already have. This vaccine is safe, effective, and essentially eliminates the risk of hospitalization and death even from the Delta variant. In short, it’s the best tool we have.”
Pritzker commended school districts like Champaign Unit 4 which had already made the decision to mandate masks for students and staff.
On July 27, the Centers for Disease Control recommended masks for all teachers, staff, students and visitors to schools. The Illinois Department of Public Health, the Illinois State Board of Education and the Champaign-Urbana Department of Health followed suit within 24 hours.
Pritzker said he hoped school districts would have followed the CDC guidance, but many continued to make masks optional.
The Mahomet-Seymour Board of Education voted 6-1 to “strongly recommend” masks prior to the CDC’s recommendations. The Aug. 2 regularly scheduled board meeting was canceled, and Superintendent Lindsey Hall told parents that the issue would be discussed at the Aug. 16 board meeting.
St. Joseph-Ogden CHSD #305 also “strongly recommended” masks while Heritage CUSD #8 released updated information alongside ISBE on Aug. 2, stating “everyone should be prepared to wear masks if our local metrics warrant that need.”
Many of the districts, like Prairieview-Ogden and St. Joseph CCSD #169, have board meetings on Aug. 9. They had planned to discuss their back-to-school plans then.
PV-O Superintendent Jeff Isenhower said that the district’s insurance carrier advised them to “follow the IDPH guidelines.”
Carle’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Charles Dennis emailed Champaign County Superintendents sharing the perspective of the medical team he represents, recommending that all eligible persons over the age of 12 get vaccinated and supporting the recommendation of the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics to wear masks at school.
“Although many children will not contract disabling COVID-19 symptoms, some may develop serious and life-threatening complications that are largely unpredictable. Others will transmit COVID-19 to older individuals who remain at a particularly higher risk for severe complications from the disease.”
IDPH announced that schools can choose to utilize the SHIELD Illinois saliva-based test developed by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), which is able to detect SARS-CoV-2 and its variants in symptomatic, pre-symptomatic, and asymptomatic individuals earlier on Wednesday.
Heritage School District had already begun surveying parents about the possibility of offering the test to their children. As of Tuesday, Superintendent Tom Davis said about 200 families had responded.
“In-person learning is a priority and we want to make sure students, teachers, and staff are able to return to the classroom as safely as possible,” said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. “With the surge in COVID-19 cases and Delta variant, the sooner we know if someone has been infected, the quicker we can take action to prevent the spread of the virus to others. Not only is testing the best way to identify these cases, it can also help keep kids in school with a new Test-to-Stay protocol. We encourage all school districts to take advantage of this free resource.”
As an alternative to quarantine, students and teachers who have been identified as a close contact of a positive COVID-19 case now have the option of a Test-to-Stay protocol. Close contacts must be tested on days 1, 3, 5, and 7 after exposure.
As long as close contacts remain negative, they are not required to quarantine. Close contacts are only eligible for Test-to-Stay if their school requires universal indoor masking of all individuals (age 2 and older), regardless of vaccination status, and both the close contact and infected individual were wearing masks at the time of exposure.
IDPH encourages all schools to implement weekly testing of their unvaccinated students and staff. Schools that implement weekly testing will be prioritized for Test-to-Stay and outbreak testing when required.
Masks will also be required in long-term care facilities.
Pritzker also issued a vaccine mandate for employees working in congregate facilities, including state prisons, veterans homes and other congregate settings as COVID-19 cases continue to rise statewide. This mandate will begin Oct. 4.
“I want to end with a message for our vaccinated residents,” Pritzker said. “I know this is hard. You did the right thing for yourself, for your family, for your community. And now, because of the new delta variant and the high number of unvaccinated people in the United States. It feels like we’re going backwards in this journey.
“Please remember that the vast majority of vaccinated people are safe, no vaccine is 100% effective. Hearing about breakthrough cases on the news can feel scary. Even when breakthroughs are rare and mild, but the likelihood of a vaccinated person testing positive for COVID-19 remains extremely low, and most importantly these vaccines are doing what they’re designed to do essentially to eliminate the risk of hospitalization and death again to all of those who are already vaccinated.”
