Recent actions at the state level will not have immediate impacts on the school mask mandate.

On Wednesday, Commonwealth Court threw out the order from the Pennsylvania Department of Health that requires masks in schools.

But, Gov. Tom Wolf instructed attorneys with the department to file an appeal to the state Supreme Court — effectively putting the court’s decision on hold and meaning the mask mandate is still in effect.

However that shakes out in the long run, due to action earlier this week by the school board, masks now have a better chance at preventing quarantines for district students.

The district has a new health and safety plan – one that changes the circumstances of close contact when masks are properly worn.

At Monday night’s school board meeting, the seven members of the board who were present unanimously approved an update to the health and safety plan that was brought forward by the administration.

One of the changes – under the section labeled “contract tracing” – relates to the treatment of close contacts.

The district will “follow Department of Health and Johns Hopkins contact tracing protocols applicable to close contact at school with the modification that, regardless of distance apart, a student shall not be deemed a close contact and shall not be excluded from school by the district if the student and the potential contacts were properly wearing face coverings and the student is neither COVID-19 positive nor symptomatic,” according to the document approved on Monday.

Students may decide to self-quarantine even if not required to by the district, according to the document.

“Any such student that is excluded by the district because he/she is either COVID-19 positive or symptomatic may return to school when permitted to do so pursuant to the Department of Health guidelines,” according to the plan.

On Wednesday, the five judges on the court threw out the school mask order by a 4-to-1 margin, but an appeal would put that on hold.

Warren County School District Superintendent Amy Stewart confirmed Wednesday afternoon that students would be expected to wear masks in school on Thursday.

COVID STATS

There were 68 more cases of COVID-19 and three more deaths in Warren County announced Wednesday by the Department of Health.

There have been 141 COVID-related deaths of county residents so far – a rate of about 3.6 deaths per 1,000 residents, according to the department.

There were nine COVID deaths in September in the county, 10 in October, and there have been 15 already in November. The month with the greatest number of COVID deaths in the county so far was January, with 65.

The total number of cases is 4,436, with 3,643 confirmed and 793 probable. There have been 302 new cases so far this month.