Teens could become the ambassadors for vaccination that we need

The timing of the decision also means that high school-age students can be inoculated before returning to school in the fall. While schools can keep transmission rates low with masks, distancing, testing, keeping students in pods, improved ventilation and other mitigation measures, vaccines provide a key layer of protection that can replace other, more onerous strategies. By the start of the next school year, I can imagine high schools looking much more like pre-pandemic times, especially if community transmission rates continue to fall, as expected. Youth sports, choir practice and extracurriculars that have been paused may all resume. And if nearly all teachers, staff and students are vaccinated, schools can potentially do away with masks and other restrictions.