San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
CDC loosens mask rules for kids at summer camp
NEW YORK — Kids at summer camps can skip wearing masks outdoors, with some exceptions, federal health officials said Friday.
Children who aren’t fully vaccinated should still wear masks outside when they’re in crowds or in sustained close contact with others — and when they are inside, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Fully vaccinated kids need not wear masks indoors or outside, the agency said.
The guidelines open the door to a more conventional camp experience and came out in the nick of time, just before camps start opening in some parts of the country, said Tom Rosenberg, president of the American Camp Association.
The guidance is the first in a wave of updates that will incorporate the CDC’s recent decisions on masks and social distancing. Earlier this month, the agency said Americans don’t have to be as cautious about masks and distancing outdoors, and that fully vaccinated people don’t need masks in most situations.
Previously, the CDC advised that just about all people at camps should wear masks with only a few exceptions, like while they are eating, drinking or swimming.
But that was before adults began getting shots in December, and before the U.S. government authorized the Pfizer vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds earlier this month.
About 2.5 million of the roughly 17 million U.S. kids in that age group have gotten at least one shot. A second dose is also required, three weeks after the first, and then it takes two more
weeks before takes effect.
That means that it will be midsummer before kids in that age bracket are fully vaccinated. When that happens, “it’s going to be a camp experience that is much more like (before the pandemic),” said Erin Sauber-Schatz, who leads the CDC task force that prepares recommendations.
The new guidance also says social distancing — staying 3 to 6 feet from others — is recommended for the unvaccinated, but not for the vaccinated.
Camps likely will have mixed groups of vaccinated and unvaccinated kids and should be prepared to have mask and distancing guidelines in place, CDC officials said.
Agency officials have said their decision was based on growing medical evidence, but CDC officials provided few specifics. The agency did not post a science brief detailing the supporting evidence until Thursday.
The U.S. vaccination campaign has been an apparent success, with COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths declining. But some public health experts saw the rollback as prematurely removing a measure that had helped drive that success. Some
the
vaccine
fully
also faulted the agency for poorly communicating the decision.
“There is no evidence that states, businesses, event organizers and so on were given any heads up that this announcement was pending,.” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, a pandemic researcher at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.Asked how camps will sort out who is vaccinated and who is not, SauberSchatz of the CDC said those decisions will have to be made at the local level.
Rosenberg, whose organization represents thousands of year-round and summer camps in the United States, noted medical forms are a common requirement and said many camps likely will ask for some kind of vaccination verification.
More than 80 percent of overnight camps did not open last year, some because states didn’t allow them to, Rosenberg said. This year, all states are permitting day and overnight camps, though many expect to operate at lower capacity, he added.
“This is going to be a summer of joy,” Rosenberg said. “This is going to be a summer where kids are going to be able to reconnect, emotionally and socially, with each other.”