New Jersey and Delaware are among several states that plan to lift statewide school mask mandates in the coming weeks, leaving the decision to require masking in the hands of local school districts, county officials and perhaps individual families. Is this the right time to end universal masking in classrooms, or is it too soon?

Also, a low-dose vaccine appears to be on the horizon for children under 5 as the FDA reviews Pfizer’s emergency authorization application. We’ll talk about the vaccine for young kids and the issue of vaccine hesitancy among parents, since only one quarter of kids ages 5-11 are vaccinated. And we’ll look at where we stand with Omicron and the threat of potential future variants.

Guests

David Rubin, a pediatrician and director of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s PolicyLab. @policylabchop

Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. @jennifernuzzo

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WHYY, N.J. parents have mixed feelings as state plans to lift school mask mandate – “Balancing public health with the need to get back to some semblance of normalcy are not easy. If we are to err, I would much rather be it on the side of protecting public health,” Murphy said.

The New York Times, covid-vaccine.html">Pfizer is expected to ask the F.D.A. to authorize its Covid vaccine for children under 5 – “Federal regulators are eager to review the data in hopes of authorizing shots for young children on an emergency basis as early as the end of February”