MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Seven-year-old Annabell Saintil arrived at St. Lawrence Catholic School with a face mask and said she was ready to start the 2021-22 school year on Wednesday in Miami-Dade County.
Just as she was getting ready to go get inside, Annabell briefly put her mask down to give her mother, Natasha Saintil, one last kiss and hug goodbye.
The school in the Ojus neighborhood had a special guest: Jim Rigg, the superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Miami. He was ready to dance, greet students and deliver words of encouragement to teachers.
“We’re trying to encourage vaccinations and we believe that our current plan is safe,” Rigg said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended everyone who is 12 years old or older to get the vaccine. Although fewer children have been infected with COVID-19 compared to adults, the CDC reported children can be infected with the virus, spread it, and get sick from COVID.
With this in mind, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami implemented an indoor face mask mandate for unvaccinated students. There are exceptions while eating or playing sports. The Archdiocese of Miami’s 57 schools also placed desks with plexiglass divisions 3-feet apart from each other.
“The pandemic is still with us and it is serious,” Rigg said about the ongoing surge of COVID cases in Miami-Dade and Broward counties that is driven mostly by the Delta variant. He added, “We are certainly watching the progression of the pandemic very closely.”
Infectious disease experts warned during the pandemic that as long as the virus continues to spread the virus’ evolution into more dangerous variants will continue.
Natasha Saintil said she would have preferred if the face mask mandate at Catholic schools would have also applied to vaccinated students. The CDC issued a recommendation on July 27th in support of universal indoor face mask mandates at schools since the Delta variant started to infect people who were vaccinated.
“I feel like everybody should just wear a mask to just be safe,” said Saintil after dropping off Annabell.
Also on Wednesday, Pope Francis made an urgent appeal in support of vaccines. Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski has long supported the vaccines against COVID-19.
“Thanks to God’s grace and to the work of many, we now have vaccines to protect us from COVID-19,” the pontiff said, adding that getting the vaccine “is a simple yet profound way to care for one another, especially the most vulnerable.”
The National Catholic Bioethics Center did not endorse any of the three vaccines with emergency use authorization from the US Food & Drug Administration alleging abortion-derived cell lines. The center is supported by conservative Catholics who have raised ethical objections to the relation to cells derived from human fetuses from women who elected an abortion decades ago. The cells are also used to manufacture vaccines against shingles, rubella, chickenpox, and hepatitis A.
Afternoon report