Lamont: School mask mandate should stay

Gov. Ned Lamont said Tuesday he wants the state’s mask mandate in public schools to extend past Sept. 30 when his pandemicrelated powers are due to expire.

Legislative leaders from both parties and the Lamont administration in a meeting later Tuesday discussed the possibility of a 120-day extension of his powers. That would coincide with start of regular legislative session in February 2022.

“I just think it should continue a little bit longer,” Lamont said of the school mask mandate after an unrelated event in Hartford on Tuesday morning. “We’ve got not just delta, but mu. We’ve got flu season. The flu is coming up from the southern states. I think we’ll know a lot more in six weeks.”

Lamont did not say whether he would extend the statewide K-12 mask order for six weeks, or some other length of time, or leave it open-ended. He also did not say what COVID-19 infection benchmarks he and his public health people would like to see before allowing school systems to make their own decisions about mask requirements.

The governor’s comments came as the American Academy of Pediatrics warned that national COVID-19 cases among children have increased “exponentially” in recent weeks. Connecticut data shows the bump locally has been small.

Overall, the data provided by AAP showed that nationwide there were nearly 500,000 new COVID-19 cases among children over a two-week period ending on

Sept. 9 — the highest number of new cases involving children in a two-week span since the start of the pandemic and a sizable jump from previous weeks.

Nationally, the number of cases among children increased by 28.9 percent from the previous two weeks, according to AAP.

In Connecticut during the same period, there were roughly 2,100 new cases of COVID-19 in those up to age 19. This represented an increase of about 70 cases compared to two weeks prior, a 3.5 percent increase, data shows.

In the past two weeks, about 25 percent of the new cases in Connecticut were reported among children.

Experts in Connecticut have acknowledged that cases are swelling among children in other parts of the country, but the trend is not as dramatic in Connecticut.

“It’s delta. We are seeing many more pediatric hospitalizations,

cases and deaths. Connecticut is probably still doing OK, but across the country, it’s way up as compared to last year,” Dr. Ulysses Wu, chief epidemiologist for Hartford HealthCare said ahead of the start of the school year.

The most recent statistics from the state show that 386 students in K-12 have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of the school year. All but 20 were unvaccinated.

“None of our kids 12 and under are vaccinated. That’s no different school district by school district. I think that’s why it was important that we have a mandate to keep kids safe and keep kids in school,” Lamont said Tuesday. “Look what’s going on in Georgia. They’re not in the classroom. They’re quarantining.”

The governor had indicated in recent weeks that he wanted to keep the school mask mandate in place past the end of this month, given kids under the age of 12 are still not able to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and with the highly contagious delta variant and other coronavirus variants circulating. Tuesday marked his strongest statement about continuing the order.

Education groups back mask order

The state’s largest teachers union on Tuesday said it was in support of continuing the universal mask mandate and called on state leadership to make that happen.

“It certainly is something I’m comfortable with,” said Kate Dias, the president of the Connecticut Education Association. “Universal masking is a first line of defense in preventing the spread of COVID in our school system,” particularly as large swaths of gradeschool students aren’t yet eligible for vaccination.

Dias added that mask compliance, too, has been relatively smooth at the local level.

“We haven’t heard a lot of kickback — the students are fairly compliant,” she said. “There’s recognition on the part of our members that this is an important public health action. They communicate that with their students as well.”

Fran Rabinowitz, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, likewise said students have taken to masks just fine.

“I have not heard of a case of noncompliance, to be honest with you,” said Rabinowitz. “The superintendents have commented on how resilient children are, how they just see it as part of their outfit for school so to speak.”

“I would advocate for the mask mandate to continue. I don’t believe we’re out of the woods yet, and it’s certainly one of the best mitigating strategies that we have,” she said, and added: “The easiest way to do it is the continuation of the executive order that is in place right now.”

If the mandate were to expire without state action, decisions about masks in K-12 schools would likely fall to local authorities.

“We support following guidelines that have been developed at the state level, and we are certain that most parents, teachers and others do as well,” said Bob Rader, the executive director of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education.

“Once hopefully the numbers go down with inoculations being available to those under 12, that is a time that we should again look at whether or not the mask mandate should remain in effect,” said Rader. “Ninety days seems like a reasonable amount of time, especially since we don’t know exactly when the inoculations will be available for children.”

Vote to extend Lamont’s emergency powers

The school mask mandate is one of about 10 executive orders the governor wants to extend past Sept. 30. The list also includes vaccine mandates for state employees, school staff and long-term care workers.

Lawmakers will convene the week of Sept. 27 to vote on whether to continue the governor’s powers. An extension would be the sixth time lawmakers have pushed his powers beyond a scheduled end date.

“I don’t believe we are under a state of emergency that rises to the level of a broad designation of power,” Republican House leader Vincent Candelora of Branford said. “We should follow our neighboring states like Massachusetts and limit the scope of authority that the governor would have.”

The Democratic leaders in the Senate and House said Tuesday they both support an extension but for how long is still being negotiated.

The General Assembly could also codify individual orders into law, which, Lamont said Tuesday, is likely to happen for some declarations even if his powers are extended.

House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said it’s likely that the governor will issue two new orders before the end of the year regarding booster shots for certain adults and vaccines for children under 12, once approved — “major milestones in the COVID battle” that necessitate the “flexibility and freedoms” provided to the governor under an emergency declaration.

“Why does he need executive power to do that? We’ve set up a lot of different ways to get vaccines that violate state statute,” Ritter said, adding that statutes have been overriden and relaxed to allow for vaccine clinics in areas such as parking lots that otherwise wouldn’t be allowed.

The top six state lawmakers have the authority, under a new law passed during the 2021 legislative session, to reject any of the governor’s executive orders within 72 hours of issuance. Going forward, Ritter said he and Looney have promised the four other lawmakers to hold a vote any time a member objects to one of Lamont’s orders.

Lamont said Tuesday he welcomes legislative input on the state’s pandemic response but that it’s too time consuming to have the General Assembly weigh in on every decision even as the Delta-driven surge appears to be subsiding in Connecticut.

“Going forward, if I needed a new executive order as regards to booster shoots for people over age of 65 and how we implement that, I’ll propose an executive order, it’ll go to the legislative leaders and they’ll have 72 hours to vote up or down,” Lamont said. “But I need them to be able to make a decision on a timely basis.”

On Tuesday, the state reported 1,050 new COVID-19 cases since Monday out of 24, 923 tests for a daily positivity rate of 4.2 percent. An additional 11 patients were hospitalized overnight for a total of 388. Of those, 72% are not fully vaccinated, according to state data.