Covid anxiety remains as Pfizer and US government provide different messaging

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance Friday with an unmistakable message: kids should be back in school in person this fall and schools should be very cautious about removing the measures meant to protect them. But decisions about Covid-19 safety precautions in schools will be made at the local level and they are already a hot political topic.

But as the Biden administration struggles to boost low vaccination rates in Southern states amid a troublesome level of Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy, decisions about safety precautions in schools will be made, as always, at the local level. Those decisions have already become a hot political topic as fall approaches, with Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, for example, banning mask mandates in public schools earlier this year, while California health officials announced Friday that they would continue to require students and teachers to wear face coverings indoors even though the CDC's new guidance said vaccinated teachers and students don't need to wear masks inside school buildings.