Miami-Dade County Public Schools is relaxing mask mandates for all students in the district, citing low rates of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations in the community.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho announced the change at a news conference Tuesday.

Carvalho said starting Wednesday, parents will be able to access the parent opt-out form for any student, regardless of grade.

Last week, the district had relaxed the mask mandate for middle and high schools. Now all elementary and K-8 schools are included, Carvalho said.

Carvalho said the new masking rule is being implemented because the county is meeting six COVID-19 criteria, including cases in the community being below 100 per every 100,000 residents and COVID-19 hospitalizations being low for adults and children.

“We vetted this data very carefully and we consulted once again with our medical experts, having obtained overwhelming consensus about today’s announcement,” Carvalho said.

Among the thresholds the district wanted to reach was 60% of eligible students being vaccinated. Carvalho said about 63% of eligible students are fully vaccinated, while around 83% have received at least one dose.

Carvalho said the average numbers of COVID-19 cases in Miami-Dade Public Schools has also dropped, to an average of less than 20 over the past five weeks.

Last Friday, there were 14 cases district-wide out of a total of around 330,000 students and about 48,000 employees, Carvalho said. Around 75% of Miami-Dade schools had zero cases last week, Carvalho said.