Children need to wear masks in the upcoming school year.  The CDC just updated their recommendations and implores people and children to wear them in “high transmission” areas such as schools, regardless of vaccination status. I get it. Everyone is tired of COVID and we all want to go back to normal life. But for now, and for the foreseeable future, our new normal may be wearing a mask when inside crowded spaces such as schools. Of course, if everyone were to get vaccinated, we could eradicate this disease and not have this debate. We know that vaccines save lives. But as long as people continue to choose to not vaccinate, they are choosing the alternative – masking in populated areas like schools.

Also read: POINT | Science doesn’t support masks in school

As a front-line nurse I was one of the first to get vaccinated in January. I happily threw my mask to the wind when the restrictions were lifted. My kids were still not vaccinated and continued to wear their masks. Nervous around crowds, they kept to themselves and struggled through quarantines the last few months of school in the spring. But since I was vaccinated, I cavalierly took a trip to a Las Vegas hotel — a cesspool of humanity — and came down with a breakthrough case of COVID. This left me humbled and refocused on the importance of mask wearing. Even though I am not happy about it, I wear a mask in crowded places as I do everyday at work. Wearing masks is not just to protect one’s self. It is to reduce the spread of the virus.

Our main priority should be ensuring that kids get to attend school in-person and reduce the quarantine whack-a-mole that we saw last year. Continuity of learning can be increased by reducing the spread of infection. Masks will prevent not just COVID from spreading in schools but other airborne diseases that get teachers sick and prevent them from teaching our kids. According to the Journal of Hospital Medicine, childhood diseases such as strep throat and the flu have dramatically dropped by 62% since mask wearing in the last year. 

Wearing masks in schools is also essential to help keep teachers safe and schools staffed. Kids love to touch and hug and wrestle one another. They are sweet little super spreaders and spread this love to their teachers. Teachers will benefit from mask wearing in school with fewer quarantines and disruptions to in-school class time. Finding replacements for sick teachers has become nearly impossible.

Universal wearing of masks in schools will make enforcement easier for school officials and level the playing field for children. Schools are a hotbed for rumor and intrigue. Requiring every student to wear a mask will eliminate children being targeted because of a choice that their parents have likely imposed on them. There will be no questions about who is vaccinated and who is not because everyone will be held to the same standard. 

Information in the COIVD era is ever changing. The CDC is continually updating its guidance based on the most current data. That is the beauty of science. And science tells us that wearing masks is best to prevent the spread of COVID.

Many kids are okay wearing masks. For them, it is a new normal that can keep our loved ones safe. They have adapted to this requirement quite well. This pandemic is a perfect Darwinian lesson; those who keep up with the science, vaccinate and mask will survive, those who don’t, may not. I know I will wear a mask anytime I am in our high school and I will continue to carry hand sanitizer for those door handles that don’t get cleaned nearly enough.

COVID isn’t over yet. The data doesn’t lie. We need to keep masking, particularly in schools.

Bethany Winder is a registered nurse, mother of school-aged children, and co-organizer for El Paso County for Universal Health Care that advocates for a single-payer system for all Americans.