From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is the Daily.

Today, to safely bring students back to school this fall,

amid a resurgence of infections, communities across the US are planning to mandate masks,

but there is a problem. Several of the country's hardest-hit states have banned such mandates.

Sabrina Tavineese spoke with our colleague, Richard Fossette, about how that conflict is playing out in Arkansas.

It's Monday, August 9.

Hi, Richard. Hi, Sabrina. How are you doing?

Are you reminding me, are your kids, your kids are back at school, right?

Yeah, my daughter's a senior. She had her first day today, but my son, who just started middle school,

started sixth grade and had his third day of school, will be barging into the house in more

less 26 minutes. So we'll have that to look forward to.

Okay, let's hurry up. All right. Okay, so, so it's August and kids are starting to go back to school,

including in your own state of Georgia. And I'm kind of remembering last year at this time, when we were

really pretty confused about the state of schools and what was going to happen with kids.

I mean, you had some places going back, some places not going back. It's kind of a mess.

And so now, we're a year later, where are we with kids in schools?

Well, I think you're right. I think it was a real mess as we approached the beginning of the last

school year. There were different policies and different school districts, but a lot of school

districts opted to tell their students to stay home. My own kids stayed home for much, if not all

of the school year last year. But I think there's been a consensus as we approach the coming school year

that kids really need to be in school. They need to be together. They need to be in their seats.

They need to be in front of their teachers learning together. It's good for socialization. It's

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