Though these test results look good, the same cannot be said for the county's academics. As Montgomery's was one of the last school systems to reopen last year, it is perhaps unsurprising that math and literacy rates of young learners plummeted by 20 percent and 35 percent, respectively, with children of color and disadvantaged students faring even worse. Each stolen school day for the thousands of children pointlessly placed into quarantine is a lost opportunity to undo this damage. Indeed, studies have shown that even missing just a few days of school, for example because of snow closures, has significant negative impacts on student performance. Large outdoor gatherings in the county, such as Gaithersburg's Oktoberfest, Rockville's classic car show, July Fourth fireworks and Festival of Lights continue to be canceled over "public health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic." Meanwhile, the rest of the country is safely gathering outdoors, even at large festivals and sporting events. The University of Florida recently reported, "Despite concern about packed college football stadiums during the pandemic, college towns like Gainesville aren't seeing upticks in COVID-19 cases, said University of Florida epidemiologist Cindy Prins, Ph.D., who tracks coronavirus trends nationwide." Though Montgomery libraries finally reopened after one of the longest closures in the country, they're still offering limited services. A county library official told us this week that story times and other indoor programs would not resume until vaccines are approved and available for children. Meanwhile, teen programming remains virtual, despite almost every single teen in the county having at least one vaccine dose. Many in Montgomery County boast that our mitigation efforts, particularly our strong adherence to masking, are the reason we're doing so well. However, an analysis of mask mandates in California suggests that it is vaccination rates, rather than masking, that dictate infection rates. The SF Gate reports, "Orange County — a non-mask-mandate county — had a very similar outcome to neighboring Los Angeles County, the first California county to bring back indoor masking in response to delta." Importantly, these two counties had comparable vaccination rates and, in fact, there was a near-perfect correlation between vaccination and hospitalizations of all counties analyzed. Montgomery County is among the nation's most highly vaccinated counties.