​COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Department of Health is “carefully reviewing” new guidance from the nation’s leading pediatricians association calling for universal masking in schools, the state’s top doctor said Wednesday.

Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, chief medical officer for the Ohio Department of Health, said the state will soon issue its own recommendations to schools regarding masks.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics recognized that while vaccination is our best protection against COVID-19, many K-12 students simply can't receive a vaccine yet, some communities have low vaccination uptake, and we continue to face more contagious variants,” Vanderhoff explained during a press conference.

In Ohio, school administrators will get to make the final calls about mask policies, he said. 

“As the department of health, it’s our role to evaluate the information and offer people the best guidance and recommendations that we can, so that will be the approach we’ll be taking,” Vanderhoff said. “It will fall to the schools themselves and to other entities to examine that information and make that decision.”

The doctor’s comments come as COVID-19 case numbers rise in Ohio and across the country.

Vanderhoff said the state is actively taking a look at two sets of guidance on masking in schools that offer different recommendations, while also taking input from other stakeholders.

On Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued new guidance that said students should wear face masks at school regardless of vaccinations status.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said on CBS Tuesday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reviewing its COVID-19 school mask guidance, but currently the agency does not recommend masks for vaccinated students. Fauci said he is hopeful there will soon be “concordance”  between the two sets of recommendations.

Ohio will not require masks in schools this year, which will be a change from last year when the state had COVID-19 health orders in place, Vanderhoff said.

Some districts in Ohio have indicated they will start the year with masks, including Cleveland schools, but most Ohio districts are not planning to require them.

Young people now represent a greater share of infections in Ohio because adults have been vaccinated at a higher rate, Vanderhoff said. From May to June, 20% of cases were among people under 20 and the age group represented 5% of hospitalizations.

The emergence of the delta variant, which is imminently becoming dominant in Ohio, puts young people at greater risk, Vanderhoff said, and he indicated the state will continue to recommend a cautious approach for unvaccinated youth.

“The school environment is a unique one. It's a special one because the majority of the students that we're looking at in the K-12 age bracket don't have access to a vaccine right now,” he said.

Vanderhoff was joined Wednesday by Dr. Patty Manning-Courtney, chief of staff and pediatrician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, and Dr. Amy Edwards, associate medical director of pediatric infection control at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital has been involved in vaccine trials for youth, and Manning said it couldn’t be more clear that vaccination will be the best tool to keep children safe in school. 

“We’ve seen through those trials that children are remarkably and wonderfully responsive to these vaccines. They're very well protected, and they have had very minimal side effects,” she said.

Edwards, who is an AAP fellow, said she is in personal agreement with the association's universal masking guidance. She said she hopes masks will remain in place in schools this year because she is concerned by reports from states with more advanced progression of the delta variant where children’s hospitals are seeing surging patient numbers.

“You can look at other states to see where we're headed. You look at Mississippi, they've got a record number of kids in the ICU. You look at Arkansas, their pediatric hospitalizations are going up. Ohio, we do not want to follow in their footsteps. We do not want to fill our pediatric ICUs up with COVID,” she said.

Pete Grieve is a Report for America corps member covering public health for Spectrum News in Columbus, Ohio. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.