New York City Schools Strategy: Test More, but Keep Classrooms Open
The New York Times
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced weekly testing of students and relaxed quarantine rules but continued to resist mandatory vaccination of schoolchildren.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday that New York City would take two new steps to address fears over the full reopening of schools: require weekly coronavirus testing of unvaccinated students and relax quarantine rules to keep more students in classrooms.
But the mayor resisted calls for a vaccine mandate for students, even as Pfizer-BioNTech moved toward offering the vaccine to children from 5 to 11 years old.
The city’s latest policy changes get at the heart of Mr. de Blasio’s strategy for schools as a city that was once the global epicenter of the pandemic confronts the Delta variant of the coronavirus. New York City was the first major school system to reopen last year, and Mr. de Blasio is determined to keep students in classrooms as much as possible this school year.
