With the arrival of back to school season, Governor Kathy Hochul has announced new policies within the state that school staff need to follow as the fight against coronavirus nationwide continues.

State officials are implementing more measures to battle the COVID-19 Delta variant. Among them is a requirement unvaccinated for public and charter school employees to get tested weekly for the virus.

Yesterday, in Buffalo, Hochul announced she will be working with localities, the state health department and the Public Health and Health Planning Council in the days ahead to put in place mandatory weekly COVID-19 testing for unvaccinated public and charter school employees, and to establish a vaccination requirement for all staff at state-regulated facilities and congregate settings.

"Last year every community across the state came together in a profound way to say, 'we can do this'," Governor Hochul said.

This war is not over and the Delta variant is a serious threat, especially for people who are still unvaccinated. We all need to remain vigilant to protect each other - and that means coming in to get your shot and booster shot, wearing masks in indoor spaces, and exercising basic safety measures that we are all familiar with by now.

It's currently mandated in New York that all faculty, staff and students must wear face masks in schools. Vaccines are not mandated, although Hochul says she'd like to make it mandatory but it's out of her level of authority. She's working on it.

Do you believe unvaccinated individuals should be tested weekly? Let us know inside our station app.

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READ ON: See the States Where People Live the Longest

Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.

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