Wakefield Schools Not Ready To Drop Masks Even If They Can

WAKEFIELD, MA — Wakefield schools aren't quite at the 80 percent vaccination threshold needed to apply for a state exemption from mask requirements. Even if they were, it doesn't seem like they'd be looking to shed the masks anytime soon.

That was the main takeaway from Tuesday night's School Committee discussion about face coverings. The point was drilled home by new Health Director Anthony Chui.

"Unfortunately 80 percent is kind of magical number," Chui said. "At this point we want to make sure we're kind of looking at all the factors that go into [unmasking] before making a decision."

School Committee member Mike Boudreau asked when people can expect to ditch masks in schools if 80 percent won't be enough. Chui responded by saying the community needed to look where it was at after Pfizer's vaccine for children over the age of 5 gets approved and rolled out. That's still at least a few weeks away.

"Then we can start talking about how much that 80 percent means," Chui said.

About 75 percent of high school students have reported being vaccinated, School Business Administrator Christine Bufagna said. But not all students are even in the database — officials need to reach out directly to the families of a few dozen students and ask if they would be willing to share their vaccination status.

Even those students wouldn't be enough to bump the vaccination rate up to 80 percent. And even they were, only about half of the district's faculty and staff have said they are vaccinated. That doesn't necessarily mean half are unvaccinated, but rather just that they haven't self-reported yet.

"What we're doing right now is we're trying to get the best, most accurate data we can get," Superintendent Doug Lyons said. "That's kind of our focus."

But even if the data is complete, it won't be like flipping a switch to pre-pandemic times.

"My working assumption is that if we reach the 80 percent, we still have to have several conversations before any changes are made," Lyons said.

Lyons said there were nine confirmed COVID-19 cases across the district last week. As of last Friday there were 51 cases since Sept. 1, 43 among students.

Mike Carraggi can be reached at mike.carraggi@patch.com. Follow him on Twitter @PatchCarraggi. Subscribe to Wakefield Patch for free local news and alerts and like us on Facebook.

Watch the full School Committee on WCAT here.