A muddled timeline for when kids can take off their masks

Some experts point to late December, early January.

View this email online LA Johnson/NPR Happy Sunday, Anya here! After last week’s comic on the history of vaccines, we decided to bring you a story on the present-day debate over masks in schools. As calls from some parents to end mask mandates grow louder, we asked scientists and policy leaders from different areas of the country when they think kids can safely take off their masks in school.  In Massachusetts, the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has now said that at any school that demonstrates a student and staff vaccination rate of 80%, the vaccinated people can choose to take their masks off. Our member station colleague Carrie Jung at WBUR visited Hopkinton High School, where they are doing just that -- for a trial period. About half the students are still wearing their masks, but most said they are feeling happier.  “You’re communicating more than before, when you were looking at someone’s eyes to read their cues,” Madison Loos, who’s a senior, told Carrie. Andrew Gaughan, also a senior,  said, “I personally think it’s great. I really enjoy seeing people’s faces. I mean it just makes for a better experience in school.”  Some experts -- like Dr. Danny Benjamin at Duke University and Dr. Jeanne Noble from the University of California, San Francisco -- think students should be able to take off masks in school by late December or early January 2022, once children under 12 have had several weeks to be vaccinated. Benjamin is co-chair of the ABC Collaborative, which has done some of the largest studies showing the efficacy of universal masking in schools. He would prefer that 100% of adults in the building are vaccinated or masked, and at least 70% of the children are vaccinated. At "70 to 80 %, there's a good chance you're going to be successful," he says.  National policy leaders have been less forthcoming with timelines for ending mask mandates in schools. In a statement to NPR, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that it continues to recommend indoor masking for K-12 students, regardless of vaccination status or community transmission levels.  You can read the full story here and follow me on Twitter @anya1anya.    Read More Here Newsletter continues after sponsor message Now, let’s get into some news this week…   Most students who want to transfer colleges don't. Here's how to start. Unique. Complicated. Overwhelming. Those are just a few of the ways people have described the college transfer process. So how do you make the transfer process go as smoothly as possible? Here's what experts recommend.   — Elissa Nadworny, NPR Education Correspondent  These 4 college freshmen from India have a remarkable story to tell. When Naveen was a child, he lived in a one-room hut with no running water or electricity. Now he is a freshman at Duke University. Read the incredible stories of four students whose lives were transformed by hard work — and a school that wouldn't give up on them.  — Kamala Thiagarajan, Goats and Soda  Why wasn't the US tracking the spread of COVID-19 in schools? In summer 2020, parents faced so many unknowns when it came to sending kids to school. Economist Emily Oster describes how she started collecting data nationwide to help parents decide for themselves. Read more here.   — TED Radio Hour staff   He always wanted a Ph.D. in physics. He finally earned it at 89. Manfred Steiner had a successful and productive career as a doctor, helping generations of medical students learn about hematology. But all along, he had a nagging feeling he should be doing something else: studying physics. At age 89, he has finally fulfilled that dream, earning his Ph.D. in physics from Brown University. Read more here. — Bill Chappell, NPR News Desk Reporter  And before you go, check out the Students’ Podcast!  LA Johnson/NPR This week on The Students’ Podcast we’re turning our attention to the real stars of the show… STUDENTS. We have so much to learn from our contest finalists and every couple weeks we’ll be revisiting some of them to hear about what their podcast did well and how they pulled it off.. For four students from St. Helena, Calif., that strength was … storytelling. The scene is fall in the Napa Valley. The year is 2000 and something. The central character… a clown. You kind of HAVE to listen, right? We talked to the team that put together the story of Popo the Clown. Their podcast sounds like the intro to a film or a mystery novel. It just makes us want to keep listening. Hear how they did it. See you next week. Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from Vermont Public Radio (edit station). What do you think of today's email? 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