The Guthrie Center School Board recently lifted its mask mandate.

The Board made the change at their regular meeting this past Monday. Before the vote, Guthrie County Public Health Director Jotham Arber made the recommendation to make masks optional, following the recently released guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the Iowa Department of Public Health. He talked about some of the reasons why he felt confident in making masks optional.

“We were talking a lot about vaccines and what that does for us, and so if you’re been vaccinated there is no point to continuing to follow those strict regimens. We feel like teachers have had an opportunity (to be vaccinated), we feel like parents have had an opportunity, and 99-percent of Guthrie County is now vaccinated for 65 and older. Those were the people we were most worried about.”

Arber talked about another change with the public health department no longer placing students in quarantine through the school district if they are exposed to the virus.

“We don’t feel that at this point, Guthrie County’s health setting (positivity rate) is three-percent for the last four months. So the transmission is well below the five-percent level that we talked about back in the fall. So we are not going to be quarantining children from the school settings any longer.”

The Board’s decision came before a new law that was recently signed by Governor Kim Reynolds, which is now in effect, that prevents public school districts from mandating masks.