Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday called for full in-person instruction in California schools this fall, but students and teachers vaccinated against COVID-19 will do so with their masks on.
Newsom's announcement came hours after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for in-person instruction and said vaccinated students and teachers don't need masks. State officials said they aren't divering from the agency's guidance, which called for requiring masks when three feet of distance can't be maintained within classrooms.
Meeting with students at Shearer Elementary School in Napa, Newsom said California is ready to send students back to the classroom full-time.
"We're here in a completely different place," Newsom said. "Determined, committed, resolved not to go back to where were pre-pandemic."
Newsom said the barriers of distance and technology hindered learning for many students since they were sent home last March. After many learned remotely for the majority of the last 15 months of the pandemic, Newsom said the state doesn't want students to repeat that experience.
"The stress and the anxiety of that dislocation as it relates to the family, the family unit," Newsom said of what students went through. "The impact of those stay-at-home orders, but also the impact of being able to figure out how these tools and technology can work."
In California, children as young as 12 are eligible to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Although eligible children comprise 9.3% of the vaccine-eligible population in the state, state data showed they'd received only 5.8% of available vaccines as of Friday.
Yvonne Maldonado, a Stanford pediatrics professor, said data has been submitted on vaccinations for children as young as 5, with the hope a decision is made on their vaccination status is made by fall.
"We're all waiting to see with anxious breath what happens," told KCBS Radio's Patti Reising on Friday afternoon. "The studies (on children younger than 5) are still ongoing, though. We're still doing here, at Stanford, some of the trials and they're not completed yet."
So California will wait to fully implement loosening the rules, according to California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly.
The state will focus on making adequate testing resources available to all schools, believing its combination with strict masking requirements can allow for full-time, in-person learning.
"Kids can get back to school in person, and be safe doing it," Ghaly said.
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