Officials split on masking children in schools as pediatric hospitals fill up with Covid-19 patients
By Aya Elamroussi, CNN
The polarization surrounding mask mandates is deepening as some state and local officials spar on how to approach face coverings protocols in schools, a debate unfolding as more children contract Covid-19.
In Florida, which has the second-highest rate of new cases per capita after Louisiana, children’s hospitals and staff are “overwhelmed,” said Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease expert at Florida International University.
“The numbers of cases in our hospitals in children and our children’s hospitals are completely overwhelmed,” Marty told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Friday evening.
“Our pediatricians, the nursing, the staff are exhausted, and the children are suffering. And it is absolutely devastating. … Our children are very much affected. We’ve never seen numbers like this before,” she said.
Marty noted that Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami is at 116% occupancy for Covid-19 patients.
A surge in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations, fueled by the rapid spread of the Delta coronavirus variant, is happening in the US as millions of children are returning to schools. It is reigniting conversations on measures to lower transmission so students can safely be in the classroom.
But officials on the state and local levels have not streamlined their back-to-school mask wearing strategy, prompting local districts to create their own rules.
In Texas, the Houston Independent School District’s superintendent said he would move to mandate masks upon students’ return on August 23, despite GOP Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order prohibiting school districts and other local officials from requiring mask wearing.
That would become effective should the school board approve it next week, HISD Superintendent Millard House said in a video posted on Twitter, adding that the move comes after local officials raised Covid-19’s threat level to red.
And that threat is so intense that an 11-month-old girl with Covid-19 had to be airlifted from Houston to a hospital 150 miles away because of a shortage in pediatric beds in the Houston area. The baby, Ava Amira Rivera, is stable and no longer intubated.
“We have not seen kids pile into pediatric ICUs across the South like we’re seeing right now,” Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN on Friday.
And as Covid-19 cases climb in Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order last week, telling the state’s health and education departments to create rules preventing the implementation of local school mask mandates.
His order was in response to “several Florida school boards considering or implementing mask mandates,” the governor’s office said, and is intended to “protect parents’ freedom to choose whether their children wear masks.” Eight attorneys have filed a lawsuit against DeSantis.
On Friday, Florida’s Orange County Public Schools said it would require students to wear masks — except pupils whose parents opt them out with a signed note. Employees, visitors, volunteers and parents also will be required to wear masks, the district said.
Returning to schools safely is possible if mitigation efforts, including wearing masks, are implemented, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who heads the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The places where you see kids in the hospital, the places where you see footage of kids in the hospital, are all places that are not taking mitigation strategies to keep our children safe,” Walensky said Friday.
The CDC recommends that everyone — students, teachers, staff and visitors — wear masks in schools.
And while the CDC says 50% of the total population is fully vaccinated, children under 12 are still not cleared to be inoculated. In the meantime, health experts, including Hotez and Marty, say mitigation efforts in schools should be implemented regardless of students’ vaccination status.
“Yes, mask mandates. I think we absolutely need vaccination mandates for our schools if we’re really gonna give kids our best,” Hotez said.
US averages 100,000+ daily cases for first time since February
With the highly contagious Delta variant having increased its grip in the US, the daily coronavirus case rate is at its highest level in months.
The US averaged more than 107,140 new daily cases over a week as of Friday — the first time that average was higher than 100,000 since February, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
The figure has generally risen since the country hit a 2021 low average of 11,299 daily on June 22, according to Johns Hopkins.
Hospitalizations and deaths have been rising, too.
More than 63,250 Covid-19 patients were in US hospitals on Friday — a number that has generally risen since a 2021 low of 16,152 on June 29, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
About 497 Covid-19 deaths per day have been in the US in the past week — well below the country’s pandemic peak of more than 3,400 daily in mid-January, but still a 40% increase over the average a week ago, according to Johns Hopkins.
Boosters for people with a weaker immune system could be on the horizon
People who are immunocompromised could soon hear about a possible Covid-19 vaccine booster.
A decision from the US Food and Drug Administration on the booster shot could come before early September, a Biden administration official told CNN.
The Washington Post reported Friday that in the next week or two, FDA officials are expected to review data on additional vaccine doses for immunocompromised people from the CDC. If the data checks out, the FDA will amend the emergency use authorizations of at least two Covid-19 vaccines to allow the additional doses, The New York Times reported.
The move could affect millions of people who may not have had an adequate response to the vaccine.
That includes people taking immunosuppressant medications, some organ transplant patients and those with certain medical conditions. Research published in JAMA Network Open estimates that 6 million people in the US are taking immunosuppressants that could interfere with the vaccine — a number the researchers say is likely an underestimate.
The CDC warned last month that the vaccine may not have been effective for immunocompromised people. The agency said these people should continue to take precautions as if they were not vaccinated.
Meanwhile for others, a booster shot might just be part of the completion process for immunization, not an annual requirement to revaccinate, said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the FDA.
“I don’t think that we want to think that these vaccines have somehow failed us,” Marks said at a discussion hosted by the Covid-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project.
Marks distinguished between two ways of considering third doses: One to aid people without an effective immune response, and another to address continuing circulation of the virus.
“There is the third dose of vaccine as part of the upfront series for people who don’t make a good immune response — that’s one type of third dosing. And then there may be a third dose, or a booster, depending on how you look at it, that will be given to make sure we have good immunity against the circulating strains of Covid-19,” Marks said. “I think we need to make sure we present this correctly.”
Hospitals are strained amid Delta surge
As cases rise, hospitals and staff are facing dire situations day in and day out.
In Louisiana, 2,421 people were hospitalized with Covid-19 on Friday, up by 71 patients from a day prior.
“We broke the all-time record that we’ve had in Louisiana on Tuesday, and each day since then we have gone up. And I can tell you the indications are, we will go up by more than 100 more for tomorrow’s report,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said.
Another 3,939 children have tested positive for Covid-19 in Louisiana since his last news conference Monday.
“That means this week more than 6,000 children tested positive. So in light of that, and the CDC recommendations, the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the information that we’ve received here from the Office of Public Health and leading Louisiana pediatricians, and quite frankly, as a parent myself, I have to ask — why wouldn’t we send our kids to school with a mask on?” Edwards questioned.
“Any holistic effort to slow the spread of the virus, which is absolutely paramount right now, in light of all the things we’re seeing across the state of Louisiana, simply has to include these young people,” Edwards added.
Edwards said he does have hope, as over the last month those individuals choosing to receive their first shot of the Covid-19 vaccine is up by more than 300% in the state.
And in Tennessee, the Covid-19 uptick is so high that Republican Gov. Bill Lee issued an executive order that allows hospitals to hire out-of-state health care providers as well as permit retired medical professionals to easily reenter the health care workforce. His order also increased bed capacity for Covid-19 patients.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.
Elizabeth Stuart, Lauren Mascarenhas, Jason Hanna, Virginia Langmaid, Rebekah Riess, Christina Maxouris, Rosa Flores, John Couwels and Ray Sanchez contributed to this report.
