Wayne County, 9 others announce they will drop school mask mandates by end of the month
In the span of two days, 10 Michigan counties with mask mandates for K-12 schools announced they’ll drop the requirements before the end of the month.
Wayne, Oakland and Washtenaw counties all said Friday they will no longer require masks in K-12 schools, effective Feb. 28.
The same day, the Health Department of Northwest Michigan, which covers Antrim, Charlevoix, Emmet and Otsego counties, and the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department announced their public health orders would be rescinded effective 11:59 p.m. Feb. 17.
Ingham County said Thursday it would rescind its emergency public health order as of midnight Feb. 19.
That means that by the first of March, there won’t be any remaining countywide public health orders requiring masks in Michigan schools.
Local school districts, however, still would be able to require them, and local, state and federal health officials still recommend masks in all indoor, public settings.
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Dr. Russell Faust, medical director at the Oakland County Health Division said the decision to drop the mask mandate was made in Oakland County as critical measures of the pandemic have improved.
The county reported that its test positivity rate has dropped by nearly 50%, and that it has seen cases of COVID-19 during the week ending Feb. 6 declined 40%; hospital admissions for adults in Oakland County are down 72% since the peak on Jan. 10 and 67% among children since Jan. 8.
“The time is right to remove the mask order for day cares and educational institutions,” he said. “We must remain vigilant, however, while we remain in a pandemic. It is vital that we as individuals maintain the measures that are critical to limiting the spread of the virus while allowing businesses and schools to stay open, and our hospitals to operate safely.”
In Washtenaw County, several factors also were taken into consideration before the decision was made to lift the mandate, including vaccination rates.
The COVID-19 vaccination rate among children ages 5-19 in Washtenaw County is the highest in Michigan, with 54.2% fully vaccinated and 60.4% having had at least one dose, according to the state COVID-19 vaccine dashboard.
Comparatively, 39.6% of school-age children statewide have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 34.9% are considered fully vaccinated.
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“Local health orders have been necessary during the pandemic, and these orders have helped protect in-person learning, critical health care capacity, and overall health,” said Jimena Loveluck, the Washtenaw County health officer.
“We are in a different place now. We can offer more flexibility while we continue to provide appropriate guidance and work with our local schools to protect health, prevent spread, and maintain in-person learning as safely as possible.”
Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said the health department anticipates ending its mask requirement by Feb. 28, and sympathizes with people who are tired of the pandemic and want to move on.
“The only note of caution I would issue is that we also thought that COVID was essentially done with us last summer, only to see it come raging back,” Evans said in a statement. “That was the reason for our caution. Hopefully the past will not be a prologue this time. This time, I think we can feel hopeful that the light at the end of the tunnel is for real.”
While case rates and other pandemic indicators are quickly falling in Michigan, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks transmission in every U.S. county, and shows the virus is still spreading at a high level in all 83 Michigan counties.
That means that more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people have been diagnosed in the last week, and the percentage of positive tests remains above 10%.
When transmission is high, the CDC recommends wearing a mask in all indoor public places.
So does the state health department.
“Although case rates and percent positivity have begun to decline in Michigan, we are still at what we consider to be a high plateau and we continue to monitor these metrics closely as they pertain to the use of mitigation strategies such as masks,” said Lynn Sutfin, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
“According to recent school outbreak data, nearly 700 cases were reported as part of new school outbreaks this past week. To help protect students, staff and communities, we continue to recommend universal masking in schools and wearing masks in indoor public settings to help slow the spread of COVID-19.”
In the last year, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and state health officials have begun to shift from issuing pandemic-related orders to instead urging personal responsibility.
They continue to recommend that schoolchildren and others wear masks to slow the spread of the virus. They also encourage all Michiganders who are eligible for vaccines and booster shots to take them.
Mask requirements, however, have been controversial since the start of the school year, when parents staged protests both for and against mandates.
Earlier this week, parents sued Oakland County and the Huron Valley Schools, the Troy School District and the Waterford School District in Oakland County Circuit Court in an effort to repeal the mandate.
The lawsuit alleged that coronavirus didn’t pose a threat or cause an emergency exclusive only to school buildings, and that case rates, deaths and hospitalizations among children have been low, comparatively.
Another lawsuit was threatened in Walled Lake Consolidated Schools, where an anti-mask parent group insisted that the school district should stop enforcing the county mask requirement.
Despite the resistance some districts and county health departments have faced around mask requirements, the Detroit Public Schools Community District will continue to mandate masks in all of its buildings, said Superintendent Nikolai Vitti.
“We look forward to the day staff and students do not need to wear a mask in school,” Vitti, who runs the state’s largest school district, said Thursday in a statement to the Free Press. “We are optimistic that this day is approaching soon.
“DPSCD has always been in alignment with CDC, Michigan health department, and the Detroit Health Department health guidelines regarding COVID. Currently, all three health organizations recommend universal masking indoors for K-12 settings. When this recommendation changes, then we will consider updating this requirement.”
One parent group, the Michigan Parent Alliance for Safe Schools, says it is calling on school leaders to continue to require masks even if county health departments won’t.
“This rapid, dramatic rush for ‘exit ramps’ from masking have not been adequately explained, and seem to ignore the continued risk faced by so many,” said member Jennifer Tuksal, of Rochester Hills, in a statement posted to Facebook.
Children younger than 5 are still ineligible for vaccines, and kids who are medically vulnerable, such as those with cancer or autoimmune diseases, could be put at risk without universal masking and such high levels of community transmission, the group says.
“We are distressed, but unfortunately not surprised, at the premature and risky move to remove protections at the county level, and we predict it will lead to removal of mask requirements at the district level, as well as more illness and missed school, which no one wants,” said MIPASS member Emily Mellits, of Washington Township.
“The virus doesn’t care if we’re tired of it, and the needs of the most vulnerable among us should not be ignored because people have pandemic fatigue. We will continue to push for evidence-based efforts to prevent harm to children in schools.”
Contact Kristen Jordan Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kristenshamus.
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