Schools in New York are loosening their COVID policies after nearly two years.
QUICK FACTS:
- In a press conference Monday, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that schools in the state of New York will no longer be requiring students to quarantine or isolate if exposed to the virus.
- “The days of sending an entire classroom because one person was symptomatic or tests positive, those days are over,” said Hochul.
- Hochul said children who test positive will still be required to wear a mask and isolate from the rest of the classroom.
HOCHUL ON THE DECISION TO FINALLY END RESTRICTIONS IN NY SCHOOLS:
“No longer are we going to be sending kids home, keeping them away from that essential experience in the classroom because we are now still dealing with the fallout of those decisions made when we had less information,” Hochul said.
BACKGROUND:
- New York had some of the strictest COVID lockdowns in the country since the start of the pandemic, causing many residents to flee to nearby states.
- American Faith reported multiple studies on COVID lockdowns and mandates failing and that those restrictions have actually brought severe “harms to our societies and children,” including “depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation in our young people, drug overdoses and suicides due to the lockdown policies, the crushing isolation due to the lockdowns, psychological harms, domestic and child abuse, sexual abuse of children, loss of jobs and businesses and the devastating impact, and the massive numbers of deaths resulting from the lockdowns that will impact heavily on women and minorities.”
- Students will still be required to stay home for five days and wear a mask when returning to the classroom for an additional five days.
