Kemp to sign order restricting Georgia schools from mandating masks
ATLANTA - Gov. Brian Kemp says he will be signing an executive order restricting Georgia public schools from requiring any students, teachers, and staff members to wear masks.
"As we go into the summer and look for schools to be back in the classroom in the fall, we're not going to have a mask mandate for our kids," Gov. Kemp said on FOX News Wednesday evening.
Speaking to FOX News Wednesday night, the Republican governor said that he thinks "the time for mandates is over."
"We continue to pull back our restrictions now - we have very few - but one of those things as we go into the summer and look at schools to be back in the fall, We’re not going to have a mask mandate for our kids. Our teachers have had the ability to get vaccinated," Kemp said.
According to Cody Hall, Kemp's communications director, the order will go into effect on June 1.
"Teachers and school staff have been able to be vaccinated for three months now," explained Hall. "We know once you do get vaccinated the chance of you spreading or contracting the virus is very, very low and given that and also the science and data around how little kids can spread or contract the virus makes it to where this move--this new Executive Order--will just make sure that we're getting more students, more teachers, more school staff back to normal."
While Kemp said he won't stop parents from having their children wear masks or teachers from masking up in classrooms, he wanted to stop any schools from requiring face coverings.
RELATED: Gov. Kemp signs executive order prohibiting state from requiring COVID-19 vaccine passports
Gov. Brian Kemp holds a press conference at the Gold Dome in Atlanta on May 7, 2020. (FOX 5)
The news surprised some school leaders.
"It was just really a shock to me, but we'll be looking forward as a board to reading the actual language," said Gwinnett County Board of Education Chairman Everton Blair, Jr.
Gwinnett schools currently require all students, staff, and visitors to wear masks at their facilities.
"Before we're encumbering school districts with the already impossible task of really governing over conflicting guidance that we're getting, we should be focused on putting the conditions in place where we can actually safely do things like take off our masks," said Blair. "So, my focus has really been on really scaling our vaccination efforts."
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms posted a response on Twitter writing:
"Spent the morning in dr’s office w/ my 10yr old, who like many other children has asthma. Even a slight cold can turn ugly, quickly. Thankfully, it wasn’t pneumonia. For the sake of thousands of kids like him, until they are vaccine eligible, I hope schools will require masks."
According to the latest data from the Georgia Department of Public Health, 32% of Georgians are fully vaccinated. That number is slightly lower in Gwinnett County at 30%. Only 22.7% of Gwinnett's 15- to 19-year-olds have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine. So far, the FDA has not approved any COVID-19 vaccines for children under the age of 12.
Georgia never had a statewide mask mandate, although Kemp eventually allowed local governments to impose them if infection rates were high. But Kemp had imposed mask mandates on many businesses, many of which ended in April.
On Tuesday, the governor issued an executive order banning vaccine passports and saying state immunization records can’t be shared with any private company aiming to create such a record.
SEE MORE: Georgia universities advised to drop mask mandates, social distancing
"While I continue to urge all Georgians to get vaccinated so we continue our momentum in putting the COVID-19 pandemic in the rearview, vaccination is a personal decision between each citizen and a medical professional — not state government," Kemp said in a statement.
Georgia has the eighth-lowest rate among states for COVID-19 vaccinations among people 12 and older, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.