State lacks data on masks
School leaders press governor to provide the metrics she is using to keep mandate in place
State health officials acknowledged they have no precise, numerical goals they are using to establish the metrics for determining whether to end a mask mandate in New York schools.
That lack of measurable health data that would be used to determine a threshold for when the mandate will end has riled opponents of the continued mask
rules that have prompted caustic showdowns at school board meetings.
It’s also created consternation among the leaders of school district who said it is creating unrest and anxiety because at present the mandate appears to exist in perpetuity.
New Jersey and Connecticut have announced plans to end the mask mandates within their schools in early March.
Travis O’Donnell, a state Health Department official, told the state’s Public Health and Health Planning Council on Thursday that New York has not developed its target metrics for what may trigger the end of the mask mandate in schools.
O’Donnell’s remarks were later reiterated by state Department of Health Commissioner Mary T. Bassett.
“We have not established a cut point for metrics, mainly because we use all of them together,” Bassett told the council. “We use all of these together. There’s no one rule and there probably will never be a ‘one rule’ that we use for determining where we stand with the pandemic, but we are in a very good place.”
Their statements were made a day after Gov. Kathy Hochul formally announced that while she was lifting the state’s mask mandate for indoor public spaces, she was not going to declare an end for the controversial mandate in schools that has sparked multiple legal challenges.
The decision was made based on the data, Hochul said, noting the fact that about one-third of children 5 to 11 years old have been vaccinated compared to 85 percent of adults.
The school mask mandate will remain in place until at least early March, after the winter school break, Hochul said. She declined to provide details on any vaccination or
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infection rates that would be used as a threshold for ending the mandate, although she has said that her administration’s decisions rest on the science and the data.
She has also sought to rhetorically distance herself from the administration of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, which was engulfed in a scandal underreporting nursing home deaths during the height of the pandemic.
In her announcement Wednesday, Hochul again emphasized her reliance on data and experts, while also noting that her decision-making process includes other factors, including consultations with politicians, union leaders, hospital executives and educators.
“Everybody I could think of has received a phone call from me to ask them how they feel about where we are, where we’re going and what we should be doing next,” Hochul said. “Consulting with them has given me not just the data, but the onthe-ground view from the people who are most affected and that’s how I make the best decisions.”
In that same news conference, Hochul said she would look at COVID -19 data, like including infection rates and pediatric hospitalizations, to make a decision on masks in schools after the winter break.
“We’re going to continue reassuring the people of this state that we will take the most thoughtful approach possible based on data, metrics, experts,” Hochul said.
Students are expected to be sent home with two COVID -19 rapid tests before they leave for the winter break, according to remarks by health department officials at the council meeting.
Although the governor is concerned about potential spikes in COVID -19 cases among youth following winter break, when many will be traveling or congregating in social settings, she said she felt comfortable removing other indoor mask restrictions before the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day.
That decision on businesses came despite her statements that gatherings for the National Football League championship game last year had led to a surge in cases.
“Children still need adults to look out for their health,” Hochul said. “This is all about looking out for the health of children.”
The day prior to Hochul’s announcement, she conducted a conference call with school officials across the state. In the call, some of the officials pressed her office for the specific goals she wanted to see from the data, to determine when masks should no longer be required.
“They should be tasked with establishing standardized metrics and a system for the state to make determinations, on a regional basis, pertaining to school mask mandates,” Steve Lopez, the Conference of Big 5 School Districts chairman, said in a statement released through the governor’s office.
Hochul’s administration has a precedent for setting parameters related to the coronavirus for the implementation of its policies.
As hospitals began to face a shortage of staffed beds last year, the Health Department issued specific criteria, including a percentage of available staffed beds, that would require those facilities or their regions to limit nonessential surgeries.
The messaging on masks for schools has left some New Yorkers at the very least confused, if not irate, about what thresholds must be met in order to end masking in educational settings.
During the council’s meeting Thursday in Albany, people who spoke during the public comment period pleaded for the end of the mask policy in schools.
Many offered similar remarks that have been echoed at school board meetings across the state and country throughout the pandemic, including allegations of government
overreach and constitutional violations. More than 1,000 comments were also sent to the council, according to its officials.
The comments left some of the health council members disturbed and dejected regarding the perspective around the deadly pandemic. They urged the health department to figure out a way to better communicate its data and metrics to the public.
“I would have to say, from everything we’ve heard from the letters and the people that have spoken, is that process is not well understood, whether or not you agree with it,” Ann F. Monroe, a member of the health planning council, said during the hearing. “I would like to understand from the department, their process, who they consult with, what levels they use to make the decisions they make before us today.”
The council’s chair, Jeffrey A. Kraut, executive vice president at Northwell Health, one of the largest healthcare providers in New York, responded that the governor had provided those metrics,
and he asked for the health department to expand on that. Jason W. Riegert, an attorney for the state health department, said he couldn’t recall the governor’s exact remarks but added that her decision is based on data.
O’Donnell, one of the other health department officials at the council meeting, responded that, when it comes to mask mandates in schools, the state is looking at the rates of infection, hospital admissions, including pediatric patients, vaccinations, global trends in COVID -19 transmission, and the trends in surrounding states that have relaxed their mask requirements.
Monroe then asked O’Donnell what are the target details of those metrics.
“Targets have not been developed yet,” O’Donnell said.
Monroe responded: “Targets are important to understand how close or far away we are from reaching goals that the department has in mind when making its decisions. That’s enough from me, but I would like to see those targets set clearly and transparently.”
Monroe and her fellow members of the council unanimously agreed to extend their emergency regulation, which is the backbone of the state Health Department’s mask mandates, another 60 days.
That sets the regulation to expire in the lead up to Easter and Passover, around spring break for public schools. The commissioner has the right to end the determination, which uses the ingredients of the regulation to produce the mandate, at any given point.
In one of the lawsuits challenging the state’s mask mandate in schools, a state Supreme Court justice on Long Island ruled last month that Hochul’s administration had circumvented the Legislature, which last March ended the unbridled authority it had granted former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to enact laws and implement rules through executive orders during the height of the pandemic.
Justice Thomas Rademaker, in a six-page decision, addressed whether the health commissioner — at Hochul’s direction — had the constitutional authority to impose a rule that in effect carries the weight of law. The judge noted that while the commissioner has the ability to implement rules concerning public health, “nowhere in the Public Health Law is the commissioner bestowed with the authority to make a law.”
Rademaker’s decision striking down the mandate was stayed by a midlevel appeals court pending the outcome of an appeal of the ruling that was filed by the state attorney general’s office.
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Children still need adults to look out for their health. This is all about looking out for the health of children.”
— Gov. Kathy Hochul