BUFFALO (WBEN) - According to the guidance put forth by the Erie County Department of Health Monday, masks will be required in all schools for anybody above the age of 2, regardless of vaccination status.
The issue surrounding masks in general, but especially mandated masking of school-aged children and toddlers, no doubt is a controversial one to many parents across the county.
However, two prominent local doctors backed the guidance put forth by the ECDOH, saying these steps are fair and necessary to slow the spread of COVID in schools.
"I think the mandates are consistent with the American Academy of Pediatrics as well as the CDC guidelines," said Dr. Stephen Turkovich, chief medical officer at Oishei Children's Hospital. "In a community like ours where we're starting to see this go up...and has now reached a high threshold of transmission - in order to keep our kids in school, which we all want to do, I think these mandates and guidelines are necessary to keep schools open."
"I do agree with what the local health department has set forth," added Dr. Joseph Chow, group president for WNY Immediate Care. "School is starting for most people in the coming one to two weeks. We also know that delta is really the dominant strain here and it's much more transmissible certainly to the people who have not been vaccinated, and because much of the school-aged population do not have that opportunity to become vaccinated, we know that's where a lot of the spread is coming from."
Turkovich says he's heard the complaints from parents about masking, but he believes the inconvenience is worth it if it means getting through an entire in-person school year.
"There's a good number of people who are obviously fatigued by masking, and we do know that masking interferes somewhat with the personal connections that are happening," Turkovich began. "Although masking is an inconvenience and that social distancing is an inconvenience, I think the tradeoff of all the benefits of an in-person education outweigh that inconvenience."
There's also the concern about compliance, specifically in younger children that have to wear masks. However, in his experience, Turkovich believes it's actually the younger kids who are more compliant with mask-wearing.
"I think the guidelines are fair," he continued. "I think that they're reasonable; they're based on science; they're based on expert opinion in review of the science both from the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics."
