Is your child unvaccinated? SC doctors urge students to wear masks in school this fall

A trio of prominent Midlands pediatricians are expressing concern that South Carolina’s relaxed face mask guidance in schools could lead to COVID-19 outbreaks in the classroom this fall.

With the highly contagious delta variant on the rise in South Carolina, the possibility of outbreaks in schools, where masks cannot legally be required, are a frightening prospect, the Prisma Health physicians said.

“It’s really scary,” said Deborah Greenhouse, a pediatrician affiliated with Prisma Health Children’s Hospital and past president of the South Carolina chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Particularly in your elementary schools where essentially no one is old enough to be vaccinated.”

COVID-19 vaccines are not currently authorized for children younger than 12, and only about 24% of South Carolina residents ages 12 to 19 have received a single shot to date, according to state Department of Health and Environmental Control data.

Greenhouse, who on Monday joined Prisma pediatricians Anna Kathryn Rye Burch and Caughman Taylor to tout the importance of routine immunizations for all South Carolinians, said she was extraordinarily concerned about the state’s prohibition on school mask mandates, especially given the state’s sub-50% COVID-19 inoculation rate.

Despite initial concern about the risk of outbreaks going into last school year, South Carolina, like many states, avoided significant coronavirus spread in its schools. State education officials and politicians held up schools as relative safe havens from the virus and Gov. Henry McMaster called schools “not an at-risk environment.”

Greenhouse largely agreed with that assessment, based on data from other countries that had resumed in-person classes, and even advocated for South Carolina schools to reopen because she said she knew it could be done safely if certain precautions like masking and physical distancing were taken.

This year, without those same measures in place, she’s not so sure.

“We are planning to send the kids back to school, but we’re taking away those same precautions that made it safe, and that’s scary,” Greenhouse said. “You’re taking away the things that worked and that helped us to make it safe.”

In May, McMaster issued an executive order preventing schools from imposing mask requirements and state lawmakers followed the governor’s lead by including a provision in this year’s state budget that codified in law the prohibition on school mask mandates. Opponents of mask requirements argue the decision to mask up is a personal choice.

State health and education officials still strongly encourage masking for all students and staff, regardless of vaccination status, but without the ability to require it, compliance is likely to slip.

Physical distancing guidelines remain in place, but are complicated by the fact that more students will be in classrooms this year and not all districts have the space to erect plexiglass barriers like they did in the past.

On top of the possible surge in school-based coronavirus cases, pediatricians worry that a drop in childhood immunization rates, which they attribute to the pandemic, could spur outbreaks of other vaccine-preventable illnesses like measles and whooping cough.

“We’re not only scared because we’ve lost the tools (such as mask requirements), we’re scared because we know other diseases that kids have not gotten because of immunizations are going to be more likely,” said Taylor, senior medical director at Prisma Health Children’s Hospital–Midlands. “So it’s creating a perfect storm of decreased vaccination rates, failure to get the COVID (vaccine) and other viruses are all coming together to be a unique storm for children.”

Greenhouse said that while school districts may not be able to require masks this fall, they should actively encourage students and staff to wear face coverings for the sake of everyone’s safety.

“We need to remember that a ban on a mandate is not the same as advocating to not wear masks,” she said. “There’s a big difference there. They still can and they still should (wear masks).”

This story was originally published August 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM.

Zak Koeske

The State

412-334-2443

Zak Koeske is a projects reporter for The State. He previously covered state government and politics for the paper. Before joining The State, Zak covered education, government and policing issues in the Chicago area. He’s also written for publications in his native Pittsburgh and the New York/New Jersey area.