In an email to families, the San Diego Unified School district announced that the districtwide mask mandate is being lifted when the new school year begins on Aug. 29.
The school district says while the districtwide mandate is ending, masks may be required at individual if a school gets at least three COVID outbreaks within a 14-day period, and if more than 5 percent of the school’s students and staff are infected at that time. If conditions at a school trigger a mandate, masks will be required there for at least 14 days.
The district is still strongly recommending that students and staff continue to wear masks, specifically surgical masks or masks with higher filtering quality such as KN95s and N95s.
In May, the district announced it was pushing back its COVID vaccine mandate to at least July 2023 because of delays in full federal approval of the vaccine for children.
San Diego Unified says they will still be offering weekly COVID testing and vaccines at school sites if someone wants them.
San Diego County was removed from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s highest risk level list on August 11.
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