MONTPELIER, Vt. — Some Vermont school officials are calling on Gov. Phil Scott to require masks in schools and indoors in parts of the state where there is substantial or high rates of transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19.
At least two school superintendents and others are planning an event Tuesday to highlight their concerns that the state isn’t doing enough to combat the spread of the delta variant of the virus that causes COVID-19.
They are the latest in a growing group of officials to call on the state to do more to fight COVID-19.
Currently, the Vermont Agency of Education is recommending that schools require masks for the first 10 days of school. The requirement could be lifted once a school reaches 80 percent of its population being vaccinated.
Children under age 12 are not eligible to be vaccinated.
Guilford, Vt., Central School Kindergarten teacher Maira Arteaga reads a story to her class on the first day of school on Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021. APEarlier this month at least five groups, including the Vermont chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital, called for universal masking in schools until children under age 12 become eligible to be vaccinated.
Last month, more than 90 employees of the Vermont Health Department urged the state to do more to fight the surge in COVID-19 cases.
