‘Tripledemic’ of illnesses is forcing new school mask mandates

Schools leaders are taking fresh precautions to prevent a “tripledemic” of COVID, flu and RSV from exploding when students and staff return from holiday gatherings.

The biggest new mandate is in The School District of Philadelphia, which will require students to wear masks for 10 days after returning from winter break on Jan. 3, according to published reports. “Many of us will be involved in quite a few social gatherings over the next few weeks,” Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. said at a news conference, according to Fox News.

New York City school officials are strongly encouraging universal masking in their buildings. Respiratory viruses are “unusually high” in the city, Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan pointed out.

Sacramento City USD leaders notified the community that they may be forced to mandate masks again if the California city moves into the “high level” of COVID spread. At the beginning of the month, levels of spread rose from low to medium in surrounding Sacramento County, district officials noted.

And in Virginia, students with disabilities at 12 schools won the right to require classmates to wear masks, WRIC.com reported. Parents argued in a Federal Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit that mandating masks was a necessary accommodation for their children, who are at higher risk of suffering serious COVID complications.

Masks were required throughout last week at Wilson Elementary in Spokane Public Schools in Washington. The school experienced high levels of students absent due to “tripledemic” illnesses, according to local reports.

JUST IN FROM SPS: Starting tomorrow through the end of the week masks are required at Wilson Elementary. Districts says roughly 30% of students were absent today. Staff reports increase in common cold, flu, RSV, COVID and other illnesses. pic.twitter.com/wV9ws8YOXO

— Mark Hanrahan (@KREMMark) December 13, 2022

Masks can help tackle a ‘tripledemic’

Masks were found to have reduced the spread of COVID in Massachusetts schools that continued to require s after the state lifted its mandate in February 2022, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Schools that made masks optional saw an additional 44.9 COVID cases per 1,000 students and staff in the 15 weeks after the statewide requirement ended. The districts where leaders kept mandates in place had higher percentages of low-income students, students with disabilities, and English-language learners, as well as higher percentages of Black and Latinx students and staff, the study found.

“We believe that universal masking may be especially useful for mitigating effects of structural racism in schools, including potential deepening of educational inequities,” the researchers wrote.

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