GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- When students and staff return to school after holiday break, they will no longer be mandated by Kent County health officials to wear a mask in preschool through sixth grade buildings.
Kent County Health Department officials say the county’s mask mandate in PreK-6 school buildings to prevent the spread of COVID-19 will be lifted Jan. 3, the day most districts return after winter break. However, individual school districts have the power to implement their own masking requirements.
When Kent County Health Officer Adam London on Aug. 20 issued the countywide school mask mandate, he placed a provision in it to lift that order 60 days after vaccinations were approved and available for children in grades preschool through sixth grade.
The county health department on Thursday, Nov. 4, began vaccinations of children ages 5 to 11 following final federal authorization of the shots for that age group earlier this week.
Related: Kent County offering COVID-19 vaccine to children ages 5 to 11
“I’m very excited that the vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine, is now being made available to the 5- to 11-year-olds and especially impressed at the efficacy, at almost 91% at preventing illness, and the fact that it had no observed severe side effects in the study population,” London told MLive/The Grand Rapids Press on Friday, Nov. 5.
“I think that this is a long time coming and it’s something that we’re certainly all very happy to see happen so that we can finally get vaccine to this large group of our population that has been largely susceptible to COVID over the course of the past year and a half.”
According to rough estimates from the health department, about 61,000 Kent County residents or so are children ages 5 to 11.
London said there will be ample time and available vaccines for those who want to immunize their children against COVID-19 before returning to classes after winter break. People can schedule a vaccination appointment at the health department by calling 616-632-7200, but they can also reach out to their local pharmacy or healthcare provider.
This week, the health department received about 2,400 shots of the smaller-dosed Pfizer vaccine for children. On Thursday, the department vaccinated 13 people in the new age group and at least 15 more on Friday. London said he anticipates they will receive greater quantities of vaccine in the coming weeks.
London’s mask mandate in schools has been contentious, and it’s something he called “a last resort.”
“It’s unfortunate whenever an order like that is necessary; It’s always a last resort,” London said. “And so I’m pleased that it will no longer be in place because we’ll have vaccine available for the families of those children. In that sense, I’m pleased. I don’t like the fact that an order was necessary to begin with. I do think the order has been very effective.”
London said data from state and federal health authorities, as well as the University of Michigan, shows that communities with mask policies in place in schools significantly reduced the amount of new COVID-19 cases and the strain on hospital systems.
And while masking is effective, there’s a better tool to protect the community against COVID-19, he said, and it’s vaccination.
To that end, London said he believes there likely won’t be another mask mandate in schools from his department.
“I think this is the last mandate that we’ll have to put in place for schools. Although, I think we need to be very cautious in making predictions because a lot of these variables are out of my control,” London said. “The Kent County Health Department and I are going to continue to do what we do, which is watch the data, observe what’s happening in the community and try to do the best we can to protect as many as we can from things that are public health threats.
“I hope that we can do that through public education, through recommendations and making things like the vaccine available in the community, and I hope that’s where our role going forward can end.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends universal indoor masking for all students and staff in K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status, in communities with high COVID-19 transmission risk.
The Kent County Health Department will recommend schools follow that guidance when the mask mandate is lifted, London said. The decision to put a masking policy in place, though, will ultimately fall to individual school districts and private and parochial schools.
“I don’t want people to think that we’re going to stop talking about masks because we’re not, because we’ve seen pretty good evidence that they do reduce the risk of transmission a bit in the schools, maybe as much as cutting it in half, but it’s not going to be an order,” he said. “It’s going to be a recommendation. It’s going to be part of the information we share.”
As far as how much of the new age group will be vaccinated, London said he anticipates it could follow the general vaccination trend of about one-third of the population highly motivated to get vaccinated, another one-third on the fence and needing more information or time and a final one-third more reluctant or resistant to getting vaccinated.
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