Back to School Amid the Delta Variant

To ensure students’ safe return to in-person learning amid a surge in the Delta variant of the coronavirus, some school districts plan to institute mask mandates.

Yet that move isn’t necessarily straightforward — several of the country’s hardest-hit states have banned such mandates.

We look at how this conflict is playing out in Arkansas.

Guest: Richard Fausset, a correspondent covering the American South for The New York Times.

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Background reading:

• Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas signed a law banning mask mandates early this year. Now, he wants to unravel it, reflecting a dilemma for Republican governors across the South, where the health crisis has deepened.
• School officials in Florida and Arizona say they intend to require students and teachers to wear masks in school, despite statewide bans on such policies.

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