This MS Coast school district just dropped its COVID-19 mask mandate. What to know.
The mask mandate at Ocean Springs schools is over.
The district’s school board voted on Wednesday to end the requirement that students and staff wear masks on campus. Starting Thursday, masks are optional.
In a press release, the district said their primary focus in monitoring COVID-19 in the community was hospitalizations and ICU usage in the state.
“As was decided at the August board meeting on August 10th, 2021, OSSD would no longer require masks once COVID-19 hospitalizations in Mississippi fell below 925 for seven consecutive days,” the press release said. “This threshold was met on September 24th, 2021.”
The vote was unanimous, school board secretary Dana Turner said.
The press release included a link to the state health department’s hospitalizations and ICU use chart, which showed hospitalizations in September had reduced when compared to mid-February, when the state’s winter peak was subsiding before the delta surge.
The night before school started in August, the board voted 3-2 to mandate masks, but on the condition that COVID-19 data would be regularly reevaluated.
The district now may be the first in south Mississippi to rescind its mask mandate. Unlike last year, Gov. Tate Reeves did not issue a statewide mask mandate for schools, so each district has made their own policies.
The Harrison County and Jackson County School Districts, the two largest on the Coast, never required masks.
State data shows COVID-19 cases in Coast counties, and in Coast schools, have declined dramatically from their August peaks during the delta surge. But the number of new cases in the state remained above 1,500 on most days in the last week, well above the typical daily case numbers at this point last school year, when masks were required at all Mississippi schools.
