COVID-19 Updates: Mask discrimination in schools, EU recommends travel ban, cases on the rise

The Education Department announced it’s investigating whether bans on mask mandates in schools discriminate.

According to the department Monday, its Office for Civil Rights sent a letter to chief state school officers in Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah. The office is looking into whether their ban on mask mandates “discriminate against students with disabilities who are at heightened risk for severe illness from COVID-19 by preventing them from safely accessing in-person education”.

“It’s simply unacceptable that state leaders are putting politics over the health and education of the students they took an oath to serve,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said. “The Department will fight to protect every student’s right to access in-person learning safely and the rights of local educators to put in place policies that allow all students to return to the classroom full-time in-person safely this fall.”

The department said it is not currently investigating mask mandate bans in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, or Arizona because those bans are not currently being enforced.

Meanwhile the European Council decided Monday to remove the U.S. from a safe list of countries for nonessential travel.  The video above shows White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki discussing the decision at her daily briefing. The EU also removed Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro and North Macedonia from the list.

The council said in a statement “this is without prejudice to the possibility for member states to lift the temporary restriction on nonessential travel to the EU for fully vaccinated travelers.”

The EU’s decision is based on a rise in COVID-19 cases in the U.S. Last week, new cases averaged over 152,000 a day. That’s the most the country has seen since the end of January.

Hospitalizations were around 85,000, which hasn’t been seen since early February. Deaths have been over 1,200 a day for several days. That’s seven times higher than they were in early July.

It’s important to note the EU’s safe travel list is just a recommendation. Americans can expect travel rules to vary by individual country.