The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Feb. 8 that students and faculty in schools should still be required to wear masks. “We continue to endorse universal masking in schools,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky told Reuters. “We have and continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission—that is essentially everywhere in the country in public indoor settings,” she added. Walensky’s comments came after the Democrat governors of New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut announced plans to drop their respective school mask mandates, and Democrats in the Virginia Senate helped pass a bill that would prohibit districts from requiring face coverings. COVID-19 cases, after skyrocketing in late 2021 and early January due to the Omicron virus variant, have dropped significantly across the nation in recent weeks. Under 80,000 cases were reported on both Feb. 5 and Feb. 6 to the CDC. On Feb. 7, about 353,400 …