Fewer than 10 NC school districts still make masks optional amid rising COVID-19 cases

Fewer than 10 of the more than 100 North Carolina non-tribal public school districts still allow masks to be optional, the state Department of Health and Human Services reported Thursday.

Several dozen school districts that once made masks optional are now requiring them, some holding emergency meetings to reverse course after just a handful of days of school.

That’s after about a week and a half of school for most of the state’s students.

North Carolina K-12 schools accounted for 96 COVID-19 infection clusters as of Thursday, a figure fast-rising since the beginning of the school year.

The clusters continue to often come from higher-risk environments, such as contact sports, state Health Director Dr. Betsey Tilson told the North Carolina State Board of Education on Thursday, during the agency's monthly report to the board.

Across the Triangle, the state lists Durham, Chapel Hill-Carrboro, Chatham, Franklin, Moore and Orange school districts as participating, but not the Wake, Johnston or Person school districts.

DHHS’s monthly report to the board didn’t get into how severe the cases are among the state’s youngest people, though hundreds of thousands of eligible adults remain vaccinated and unprotected against the fast-spreading Delta variant of the novel coronavirus.

“We are seeing very tight capacity in our hospitals, in our ICUs, so I’m very worried about our hospital capacity,” Tilson said.

Tilson recalled the optimism of board meetings this spring, after COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out for all people age 16 and older.

“Unfortunately that has not held,” Tilson said.

While cases are rising among children of all ages, case rates are worse for older teenagers. They’re also worse for children 5 and older, compared to younger children.

Cases are rising the fastest among 18 to 24 year-olds, Tilson said, at more than 600 cases per 100,000 people. But the 0 to 17-year-old group has the second highest case rate (about 500 cases per 100,000 people) and is now experiencing its highest case rate since the pandemic began, by far. All other age groups remain below their peak levels in January.

The state is monitoring COVID-19 spread in schools with and without mask mandates and working with local health and schools officials, as well as the ABC Science Collaborative, on developing any additional guidelines.

DHHS updated its StrongSchoolsNC Tool Kit last week. The toolkit offers suggestions to schools and previously outlined requirements for curbing COVID-19’s spread.

The update recommends requiring students exposed to COVID-19 during an extracurricular activity, even if they were properly masked, to quarantine. The tool kit otherwise offers exceptions to quarantine requirements: fully vaccinated people without symptoms, people who have tested positive for COVID-19 or COVID-19 antibodies in the past three months and have no symptoms, and students who were properly wearing a mask when exposed by another person who was properly wearing a mask.

It also recommends schools hold “performance activities” outdoors, when possible, or have students wear masks and keep six feet apart when indoors. Those activities include exercise, band or choir.

The update also aligns the COVID-19 symptom list with the one provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.