Seventh and eighth graders attend classes January 11 at Olive Vista Middle School in Sylmar, California. Schoolchildren in Los Angeles are required to wear masks without cloth. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images Hide caption
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Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
Seventh and eighth graders attend classes January 11 at Olive Vista Middle School in Sylmar, California. Schoolchildren in Los Angeles are required to wear masks without cloth.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
The Los Angeles Unified School District is banning students from wearing only cloth face masks on campus as the country grapples with an ongoing spike in COVID-19 infections caused by the Omicron variant.
The district announced updated guidance on Friday that requires students to wear “well-fitting, non-cloth masks with a nose wire” both indoors and outdoors. Staff must wear surgical masks or higher.
Students and employees can obtain masks from the district if necessary.
“Our school [coronavirus infection] Prices have come down, but we remain diligent and agile to provide the safest learning environment,” district spokeswoman Shannon Haber told the Los Angeles Times.
The new policy comes into effect on Monday, the newspaper reported.
Cloth masks common at the start of the pandemic may no longer be enough to prevent you from catching the highly contagious Omicron variant, public health experts say. Instead, officials recommend an N95 or similar high-filtration respirator for increased protection from the virus.
Omicron is the dominant strain of COVID in the United States today, accounting for more than 99% of cases, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Los Angeles on Saturday recorded more than 39,000 new COVID cases amid the highest rise in cases to date during the pandemic in recent weeks, although deaths remained well below those of last winter.
The country’s second-largest school system also requires weekly COVID-19 testing of all students and staff, and they must present a negative test to get on campus.
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