Vaccines and masks have both been shown to be quite effective prior to Omicron. Kids are the remaining gap and that’s important because they can spread it even if they’re less likely to get sick, and that’s important because they bridge households and come in contact with high risk family members.

The other thing to remember is that kids don’t have a problem with the extremely mild inconvenience of wearing a mask — that’s mostly adults complaining for political reasons. If you ask a teacher, it’s just something they do like wearing shoes, and vaccination is no different than all of the other ones they get (95% rate in the US prior to Republicans choosing to politicize medicine).

This should all be indexed to vaccination and spread rates: relax restrictions on high risk activities like indoor dining as the former climbs and the latter declines, and prioritize keeping schools safe to avoid disruptive closures.