(NEW YORK) — Adding to the many challenges parents faced during the COVD-19 pandemic, vaccines remain unavailable for young children leading to questions about the need for kids to wear masks.

The issue has come to a head as kids start to return to school and even different schools within the same school district may have different mask policies.

On the national level, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said immunized adults and teens can go without a mask, including inside schools.

The public health agency has also said that schools can still embrace universal masking if they can’t verify vaccinations or have large numbers of students too young to qualify. Children under the age of 12 are currently not eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine.

At least eight states, including Arizona, Georgia and Texas, have banned mask mandates in schools.

Meanwhile, the American Academy of Pediatrics, an organization of nearly 70,000 pediatricians, this week called for schools to enforce universal masking mandates.

“AAP recommends universal masking because a significant portion of the student population is not yet eligible for vaccines, and masking is proven to reduce transmission of the virus and to protect those who are not vaccinated,” the AAP wrote in a statement. “Many schools will not have a system to monitor vaccine status of students, teachers and staff, and some communities overall have low vaccination uptake where the virus may be circulating more prominently.”

Good Morning America spoke with two pediatricians from Columbia University to help clarify for parents all the advice coming in on face masks and kids.

Here are their takeaways for parents.

1. All kids above age 2 should wear face masks at schools:

Both pediatricians, Dr. David Buchholz and Dr. Edith Bracho-Sanchez, agreed with the AAP’s recommendation that all people above age 2 should wear masks inside schools, regardless of vaccination status.

“It makes it simple and it makes it flawless and protects everybody,” Buchholz said of a universal policy. “Wearing a mask protects yourself and it also protects others. It’s a great benefit.”

Both Buchholz and Bracho-Sanchez pointed out that the AAP’s and CDC’s seemingly different policies can be explained by the focus of their work.

“The CDC is in general making recommendations for the whole country,” said Bracho-Sanchez. “The APA, they’re pediatricians and their first thought is what makes sense for children? They’re looking granularly at kids and what makes sense for them.”

2. Masks matter because kids are at risk for COVID-19:

“Our understanding of COVID-19 in children has changed dramatically [since the start of the pandemic] and it absolutely can be a very serious illness in children,” said Bracho-Sanchez. “Since the start of the pandemic, there have been over 4 million children who have contracted COVID-19 and hundreds who have unfortunately passed away from it and another large amount of children who are suffering long-term COVID-19 symptoms after having had the initial illness.”

COVID-19 cases have nearly tripled in the United States over two weeks, according to The Associated Press. The virus is also on the rise among children, with more than 23,000 new pediatric cases diagnosed in the U.S. last week, twice as many as the end of June, according to the AAP.

The CDC reports that among recent cases of COVID-19, 99.5% of hospitalizations are people who weren’t immunized.

In addition to protecting children from COVID-19, face masks also help prevent the spread of other viruses like respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza, noted Buchholz.

3. Masks allow children to learn in person:

After more than one year of learning entirely online for many students, wearing face masks is an easy measure that will allow kids to learn in person, according to Bracho-Sanchez.

“Children have absolutely suffered from being isolated from their peers, from their friends, from other people,” she said. “But that is because they have been away from other people, not because they have been wearing masks.”

“You can be around other people and socializing and wear masks, or not wear masks and potentially get very sick and have to go back to learning online,” added Bracho-Sanchez. “It’s in my mind a no-brainer. I would mask my own child. I would ask the adults around my child to wear masks.”

4. Masks should be used along with other safety practices:

In addition to supporting their kids in wearing face masks, parents should pay attention also to the other safety recommendations that have been in place throughout the pandemic, including hand washing and social distancing, according to both doctors.

They also urge parents to continue to screen themselves and their children for symptoms each morning and to stay home from school and-or work if they are sick.

5. Kids may have bigger feelings around returning to school:

Bracho-Sanchez said that parents will want to listen to their kids in case their possible resistance to or anger over having to wear a mask is about something deeper, like anxiety over returning to school.

“We are very focused on COVID and masking but this back-to-school season is going to be about so much more than COVID-19,” she said. “Some kids are really nervous. Some kids have truly fallen behind. Some kids have not been around people, so at the same time we’re having these conversations, we also have to remember that we have to protect children in so many ways.”

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(STANFORD, Calif.) — Stanford University reported at least seven confirmed cases of COVID-19 among fully vaccinated students this week.

All seven students were symptomatic, according to the school.

“As you have seen in the national news, cases of COVID-19 have been ticking upward,” Stanford University officials said in a letter to students on Thursday. “We are seeing some of this in our own community, where we are experiencing an increase in the number of student COVID cases, including among fully vaccinated individuals.”

Although the chances of contracting the novel coronavirus after being fully vaccinated are very rare, so-called breakthrough cases are still possible. Although COVID-19 vaccines have shown to be highly effective, they do not block the virus 100% of the time, meaning that some breakthrough infections occur after vaccination. This is normal and expected, and it’s not proof that the vaccines aren’t working, experts said.

However, health officials and experts alike have warned that new, more contagious variants of the novel coronavirus may be more effective at evading vaccines.

Stanford University officials said “vaccination continues to be our best defense against severe COVID-19 infection.” Face masks, physical distancing and regular hand washing “remain powerful ways to prevent the transmission of COVID-19,” officials added.

All students, faculty, staff, contractors and visitors are required to wear face coverings in spaces that are open to the public on the Ivy League school’s 8,180-acre campus in Stanford, California, about 20 miles northwest of San Jose. Face coverings in crowded indoor spaces on campus are recommended.

Stanford University recently loosened its COVID-19 testing requirements for fully vaccinated students who are living on campus or are coming to campus frequently this summer. Those individuals are no longer required to test weekly for COVID-19 or complete daily submissions on the school’s “Health Check” tool if they are verified as being fully vaccinated against the disease.

Overall, Stanford University has reported at least 257 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Some 8,300 students are fully vaccinated against the disease, while 330 are partially vaccinated, according to data posted on the school’s website.

Stanford University’s Vaden Health Services is connecting with each student who tests positive for COVID-19 to identify and notify their close contacts, who will be encouraged to get tested as soon as possible. Students who test positive will be provided with medical care and isolation space, according to the school.

“Again, vaccinations are effective at preventing severe illness. However, we need everyone to be vigilant,” Stanford University officials warned in the letter Thursday. “The variants remain of concern.”

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(NEW YORK) — In Wyoming’s Teton County, nearly 60% of residents are fully vaccinated — almost double the statewide vaccination rate.

It’s an effort that has been noticed in the state, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country and where several counties have fewer than 30% of their population inoculated, state data shows.

“We have spoken to some of our other counties in Wyoming because they wanted to know what we were doing,” Rachael Wheeler, the public health response coordinator at the Teton County Health Department, told ABC News.

As the highly transmissible delta variant has quickly spreads throughout the United States — now making up over 80% of new cases — regions with high vaccination rates are expected to fare better, medical experts say.

ABC News spoke to Wheeler and officials in two other counties leading their states in COVID-19 vaccinations about their campaigns, what they’ve done and where they go from here.

McKinley County, New Mexico

McKinley County, which includes part of the Navajo Nation reservation, was one of the hardest-hit regions in New Mexico early in the pandemic.

For Adam Berry, emergency manager for the county, that may have helped drive vaccinations to where, as of Monday, over 94% of residents ages 18 and up have received at least one dose, according to the latest state health department data. Statewide, that number is 72.2%.

“The spring of 2020 was our first wave; we had a pretty good surge,” Berry said. “We had the highest case number in the state, especially per capita, for several weeks and months, before things tapered off late summer.”

There was a longer, second surge in the winter that filled Gallup hospitals and mortuaries to capacity, he said.

“There’s very few people in the county that don’t know at least one person that was sick, if they weren’t sick themselves,” he said. “Many people know one or more people that unfortunately died due to COVID-19. So I think it’s very personal for a lot of people.”

Berry said there was a little hesitancy in the beginning, but that “it didn’t take very long at all for a lot of people to start lining up to get the vaccine.” Being able to protect themselves and their family, as well as safely see people they had not seen in a while, were big motivators, he said.

The vaccination effort has involved coordination among the county’s emergency management and public health offices, state health department, health care providers, community partners and federal agencies, including the Indian Health Service.

“It was definitely a big community effort. Everybody does their part to try to get as many people vaccinated as possible,” said Berry, a volunteer paramedic who also helped administer vaccines when clinics were short-staffed.

One thing that worked to the county’s advantage in administering the vaccine is having a significant percentage of the county served by the Indian Health Service, he said. Nearly 80% of the county’s residents are Native American, according to the U.S. Census.

“A lot of other counties in New Mexico are dependent on local health care systems and private physicians to vaccinate the bulk of their populations,” he said. “We were fortunate in that aspect that we have a large presence of Indian Health Service facilities to help take care of that population, which allowed for vaccines to come in directly from the federal government to that site.”

The Indian Health Service held drive-thru events at the Fire Rock Casino in Church Rock and did outreach to the Navajo Nation “to make it more convenient” to get the vaccine, Berry said.

The county has lately been focused on bringing people back for their second dose if needed, as well as vaccination efforts in those ages 12 to 16.

Since May 24, the county has reported only three COVID-19 deaths, and the seven-day average of new cases is three, down from a peak of 109 in mid-November, state data shows.

There’s still a lot of mask-wearing, though life has started to “look a little more normal,” Berry said. “We’ve come a long way in the last year.”

Lamoille County, Vermont

There’s stiff competition to be the top county for vaccinations in Vermont, which has the highest vaccination rate in the country.

At the moment, Lamoille County holds that distinction, with over 85% of residents ages 12 and up having received at least one dose, according to state data.

“When we saw those numbers we were very happy about it,” Aaron French, director of the Morrisville Office of Local Health in Lamoille County, told ABC News. “Every county’s working really hard.”

Part of that effort has included reaching Lamoille County’s more rural residents, who may be less inclined to drive to a vaccination clinic out of town.

“I grew up in one of those small towns, and I said, ‘Why don’t we talk to the town … and set something up, and if we only get five people, we’ll get five people,'” French said.

On a recent weekend, the office brought nurses to two towns and was able to vaccinate around 10 people.

“We were happy with that,” French said. “And we’ll continue to do that.”

Health officials have also connected with local churches, schools, manufacturers and ski resorts as part of the vaccination efforts to reach the community and workforce.

As COVID-19 cases rise throughout the United States, Vermont officials said this week they have seen a small increase in the state, likely due to the delta variant, but community spread remains low due to the high vaccination rates.

Lamoille County has had two COVID-19 cases in the last two weeks, state data shows.

French said people in the county have trusted the local department of health and state department of health throughout the pandemic, which has also been a major factor in their vaccination success.

“They needed to hear from people that they could trust, and I think those local people were their local doctors and their commissioner of public health, who’s a physician, and their governor,” he said. “We have a number of federally qualified health care centers around here, and those physicians and nurse practitioners are very well-trusted, so their messaging out to the community and their patients were really important and helpful.”

Lamoille County’s lowest vaccination rates are among those ages 18 to 29, with over 58% of that population vaccinated, state data shows. That is one area the county is focusing on, French said.

The local health office has held clinics at skate parks, fairs and race tracks in the state, and health officials look to continue to do efforts like that to continue to bring numbers up.

“There’s plenty of opportunity and we’re just going to keep plugging away at it,” French said. “I do think we can get higher than that.”

Teton County, Wyoming

There has been a partisan divide in COVID-19 vaccinations, with Democrats more likely to report getting the vaccine than Republicans. Teton County is an outlier in Wyoming as a “blue dot in a red state,” though Wheeler doesn’t think that “can account for everything.”

One major factor that helped Teton County achieve its vaccination rate — which is the highest in the state, and higher than the national average — started with the logistics of the rollout itself.

“We were very easily able to ramp up and hire a lot of additional vaccine staff when our demand was high,” Wheeler said.

That meant hiring anyone from nurses to administer the vaccines to staff to help manage the different schedules. The county also had a lot of volunteer help at vaccine clinics, from checking people in to observing for emergency response, she said.

Teton County was also one of a handful of counties in Wyoming that had an ultra-cold freezer needed at first to store the Pfizer vaccine, the first to be issued an emergency use authorization.

“That was really helpful early on to be able to accept all different types of vaccines that were approved under the EUA at that time,” Wheeler said.

When the county expanded its eligibility to schools and child care providers, the health department held special clinics on the weekends to accommodate them. “That seemed very successful, and they were very appreciative of that,” Wheeler said.

Once students were eligible, the health department held an in-school vaccine clinic before the school year let out that reached over 500 students, Wheeler said.

To reach the broader community, the health department repurposed a public transit system bus into a mobile vaccine clinic, which has been used to bring doses to worksites, like the county’s trash transfer station, and, lately, parks.

“Our goal is to reduce any barriers that there might be for people to get the vaccine,” Wheeler said.

Beyond vaccine access, the county hired an agency to help with its messaging around the COVID-19 vaccine. “They helped us have a more focused campaign that was consistent and looked really professional,” Wheeler said.

Currently, the health department is holding a “Shots for Swag” campaign, in which residents who have received at least one dose of the vaccine can win prizes.

Through the ad agency, the health department also filmed a video featuring local doctors answering common questions about the vaccine, such as around variants, fertility and pregnancy, that “put a more local perspective to it,” Wheeler said.

The health department also partnered with several community nonprofits, including Voices JH, which helped reach immigrants in the Latino and Eastern European communities in the county with resources on vaccination.

Local health officials are anticipating renewed demand for the vaccine as new age ranges become eligible, and possibly when a vaccine has full FDA approval.

For now, they’re planning to bring the mobile vaccine clinic to events throughout the summer and remind employers about the service. From July 1 to July 15, the county reported 31 new COVID-19 cases, 26 of which were in unvaccinated people and included workplace “clusters,” the health department said this week.

“We’re still messaging to everyone that the best defense is getting vaccinated,” Wheeler said. “It’s how you’re going to protect not only yourself, but your family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, community members.”

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