Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten weighed in on when schools should begin to lift mask mandates for students and faculty amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Weingarten said the issue was kids transmitting the virus to each other, and the spread would need to be low enough for her to be comfortable with lifting mandates. She commended Massachusetts’ required 80% vaccination rate as the threshold for not requiring masks.
“With … masks not being particularly not being effective for children, what’s the argument against taking off masks in schools?” co-host Willie Geist asked.
“Let me just say this — I am in favor of an off-ramp on masks,” Weingarten declared. “The real issue … is the spread low enough so that there’s no dissemination or transmission in schools. And it’s not the teachers transmitting to kids. It’s more kids and kids, particularly in elementary schools right now. And so the question really becomes do we have — that’s why I like what Massachusetts has done, because what they’ve said is that on a school-by-school basis, they said if there’s 80% vaccination rates, then those schools can lift the mandates.”
“I think it is important to have a science-based metric that people can plan for it,” she added.
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.