I anticipate a lot of calls this week with Governor Hochul’s removal of the mask mandate for schools beginning on Wednesday, March 2nd. We have waited almost 2 years for this day. As excited as I am that the caseload is low enough to allow this change, I still am a little nervous. We are at about a 2-3% positive test rate which is the lowest it has been since June 2021 when we were at 0.45% – just before the arrival of the delta variant. We are coming off of winter break and perhaps we need to see if there is going to be a bump in cases in the next few weeks. With the arrival of the omicron variant, COVID-19 illness in children and adolescents has, for the most part, been “mild.” Hopefully it will remain so.
My advice, for what it is worth, is to go with what is comfortable for you. So here we are back to “Stay Calm and Carry-on”