By Joshua Solomon | Times Union, Albany
Albany, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy Hochul affirmed Wednesday that it’s very unlikely that students returning to school this year will be required to wear masks, noting that having students out of the classroom for more than a year may had also led to a “generational impact.”
“We are not anticipating a need for masks,” Hochul said following a news conference in her Manhattan office Tuesday.
Hochul said the plans that were in place at the end of the school year earlier this summer will remain in effect. She added that the state anticipates providing coronavirus testing kits for students and staff returning in the fall.
“One of the most significant lessons when children are not in a school setting in an ongoing regular basis with the support system around them, they falter,” Hochul said. “Now we’re seeing perhaps a generational impact on the children who were home for 1 1/2 , 2 years.”
The governor’s remarks were in response to a question about whether not requiring masks in schools could lead to students being infected with Covid-19, bringing it home, infecting their family members and then those infections leading to community-based spread.
Hochul pointed to data showing that type of transmission of the coronavirus was not occurring over the recent school year. Instead, she said if there was a change in available information, the state reserves the right to institute a mask mandate for schools.
She expressed a similar opinion in July.
Earlier in the year, Hochul faced substantial criticism on the state’s plans for mask wearing as students returned from mid-winter break. Facing pressure from parents groups, teachers unions and school officials, Hochul eventually decided to have students test for the virus before they returned to school, but lifted the controversial mask mandate that had been the subject of numerous conservative-backed lawsuits.