BETHLEHEM, Pa. - With the new school year upon us, parents are struggling to make decisions for their children about masks.
Dr. Jeffrey Jahre, senior vice president of Medical and Academic Affairs at St. Luke's University Health Network, said two issues are not debatable: vaccines and masks work.
“If you put the potential hazards of a mask versus the potential benefits of a mask, versus the hazards that are known right now of COVID-19, there's absolutely no question that it comes out that masks are absolutely the thing to do,” Jahre said.
Children do best with in-person learning and masks can help to keep them in the classroom all year long, he said, by preventing a substantial outbreak.
Masks do not have to be a long-term mandate, he said, schools should reassess in 4-6 weeks to see where the case counts stand.
