The Seattle Times sometimes includes articles from the Washington Post. You have to check the byline to tell, and usually I don’t, but two paragraphs in, it’s almost always obvious. Honestly, the Washington Post makes the Stranger and Fox seem unbiased by comparison.
Today, there’s a particularly obnoxious article about the long overdue end to mask mandates in parts of Virginia. First, let’s review. Research shows that cloth masks do not reduce risk of Covid. Surgical masks reduce risk by 10%.
And in Chesapeake, Va., on Tuesday, the first day her school district stopped requiring masks in accordance with Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s mask-optional executive order, ninth-grade English teacher Amanda Lambert awoke unsure if she would go to work. Lambert was thinking about what her doctor told her: that, because of her blood-clotting disorder, she was unlikely to live through “the next round” of coronavirus variants if she contracted the illness and had to go on a ventilator.
So, does Lambert propose that students wear masks indefinitely so she can continue teaching? Or is she hoping that Covid is going to magically disappear? Does she realize that the cloth talismans some students wear have absolutely zero impact on her safety? I’m sorry, it sucks, but if Covid is a possible death sentence for you, teaching is not a safe job. It is not safe with masks. It is not safe without masks. It is not safe with mandatory vaccines. It is not safe now, and it will not be safe at this time next year. If I were Lambert, I would change careers.
In Chesapeake, mother Kasha Herek switched her child to home schooling this week after the end of required masking led the 9-year-old to fear going to school. In Virginia Beach, another mother — who spoke on the condition of anonymity to maintain her family’s privacy — said she has kept her son home this week after the boy started crying and asked if he was going to die at school.
I actually know a young healthy person married to another young healthy person with two healthy children who opted to home school said healthy children this year (after having them home all last year) because of fear of Covid and specifically concern her district would not mandate masks. I think this is insane, and I really have nothing more to say about it.
And the parent who has warped her 9-year-old’s thinking so much that he thinks his classmates’ cloth masks are all that protect him from death? That’s basically child abuse. 484 9-year-old boys have died since Covid started. Seventeen of them died of Covid. More children over four die of suicide than of Covid. Parents should really consider that before they pull their kids out of school and/or tell them they’ll die if they don’t avoid their maskless friends.
In Virginia Beach, a mother is sending frantic emails to her school board, begging them to reverse their mask-optional policy to protect the life of her 14-year-old daughter who has a heart condition.
Again, it sucks, but if school is not safe without masks for the 14-year-old, it’s definitely not safe with masks either. Surgical masks make a small difference, if any. Cloth masks are for show and have always been for show. They are not magic Covid-germ repelling force fields.
There have been some decent articles in the news lately calling for the end of mask mandates. But Democrats now identify with masks like priests with Roman collars. In Seattle, it’s an identity symbol, a clear indicator to one and all that WE DO NOT SUPPORT TRUMP and we are not anti-CRT racists and we believe in “science” (but not math) and we will save the planet from global warming, etc., etc., etc. There’s an awful lot of people on Team Science these days, but I think I’ll stick with Team Math and Team Common Sense.
- New York Times – Let The Kids Take Their Masks Off
- WaPo – Schools Can Make Masks Optional
- The Atlantic – The Case Against Masks In School
From the Atlantic:
We reviewed a variety of studies—some conducted by the CDC itself, some cited by the CDC as evidence of masking effectiveness in a school setting, and others touted by media to the same end—to try to find evidence that would justify the CDC’s no-end-in-sight mask guidance for the very-low-risk pediatric population, particularly post-vaccination. We came up empty-handed.
To date, however, only two randomized trials have measured the impact of masks on COVID transmission. The first was conducted in Denmark in the spring of 2020 and found no significant effect of masks on reducing COVID-19 transmission. The second is a much-covered study conducted in Bangladesh that reported that surgical masks (but not cloth) were modestly effective at reducing rates of symptomatic infection. However, neither of these studies included children, let alone vaccinated children.
Do I really have to MOVE to get away from my children being masked from morning till night? Isla is masks 9 hours a day, every day, with only a 20 minute break for lunch, during which time all students must face front, 6 feet apart, and are not allowed to talk. Bri is masked at least 7 hours a day, 8 hours on Thursdays when she has basketball. It is making me fucking crazy. And it really seems like it is never going to end. I am interviewing for jobs. If I were to send Saoirse to daycare while I’m at work, she’s be required to wear a mask 8 or more hours a day.
I was looking into outdoor preschool pictures in Virginia, and the pictures of the little kids from 2021 outdoors having a normal school day made me want to cry. My kids’ old outdoor preschool, which was an absolute gem, has shut down completely since March 2020. There is another outdoor preschool in the area, but they require masks and a host of other Covid precautions, despite the fact it’s for 3 and 4 year olds and is exclusively outdoors. It’s just so, so sad. I honestly feel there are a lot of parallels here with Iran, when women were asked to wear the hijab as a very small sacrifice in service of the revolution and overthrow of evil Americans. Forty years later, and they’re still making that tiny sacrifice. I view leaders like Youngkin as heroes for standing up to the mask mafia. It’s not easy when people accuse you of being a murderer for merely imposing the same rules as most European countries. Yet, here, you’re regarded as some kind of extremist if you don’t mask your 2-year-old
My school requires my kids to wear pants, which they really don’t like. Do I have to same rights then to send them to school without pants?
I do believe in masking, but that is beside the point here. Schools have the liberty of mandating all sorts of dress code requirements none of which are based in science. Parents have the right to move to different school districts or home school their children if they don’t want to adhere to then school dress code.
Youngkin is a horrible leader and has set up a email for parents to report if teachers are teaching something they don’t like (like structural racism, which is a fact). He isn’t someone to admired. What is taught is schools should not be a majority rule situation. It should be based in fact. Do you want evolution banned from your schools? Then trust youngkin’s system of parents should pick what teachers teach.
While our district has joined the lawsuit against youngkin because he is breaking state law, they are allowing parents to send a note in to allow their kid to not wear masks. So the reality is more nuance then being reported.
I bet you wouldn’t have been so sanguine about a mask requirement pre-Covid.
Pants don’t inhibit communication or emotion or learning. If the World Health Organization starts reporting that children under 12 shouldn’t wear pants, or I concluded they were harmful to kids, I’d object to those as well. Vehemently.
Also WaPo is reporting kids who show up without masks in NoVa are being segregated to the library or other non-classroom space. (See the article.)
And while evolution is fascinating, I’d rather my kids not get taught evolution and not have to wear masks. I think my 2-year-old in particular will do just fine without masks OR evolution.
I don’t agree with everything Youngkin does, but you have to take the good with the bad. That’s why I voted Democrat for so long. But now the bad of Democrats and their masking obsession is way worse than the bad of Youngkin and Desantis.
You are posting a lot of articles on why science says cloth masks don’t work (some criticisms are very valid), maybe you should post showing similarly conclusive science that wearing masks is actually existentially harmful to kids. Because I am not so sure I agree they are. I asked my brother if he thought his preschoolers were harmed by wearing masks and he said he doesn’t even think they notice its anything special, to them its like putting on shoes, just a weird rule grownups make you follow when they leave the house. I get what you are saying about seeing facial expressions, but is that an existential problem when children still have opportunity for maskless interaction in non-school contexts? I think the most annoying thing to me that I read in your posts complaining about masks is the silent distanced lunches and masking while playing outside – neither of which are common restrictions in places with mask mandates, and seem to be uniquely restrictive aspects of your particular private school.
I also agree whenever I read an article about people “about to die” if they are exposed to other people without masks I do wonder if they should be out in the world at all. But, unfortunately, some people don’t have the financial means to quit their jobs even if it puts their life at risk (ask a coal miner).
I agree with Christina, Youngkin’s anti-science racist policies regarding school curricula have far more likelihood of long term harm to children than temporary mask mandates for part of the school day, if I am weighing a balance of harms. Masks are inconvenient and sometimes uncomfortable, public school teachers being fired for acknowledging racism exists is an existential problem for the education system..
Also, outdoor preschools are awesome. As an adult, I want to spend all day at an outdoor preschool.
“I think the most annoying thing to me that I read in your posts complaining about masks is the silent distanced lunches and masking while playing outside – neither of which are common restrictions in places with mask mandates, and seem to be uniquely restrictive aspects of your particular private school.”
No, outdoor mask mandates are standard in the Seattle area. Outdoor masking is also standard in California and Oregon. There are NO schools that do not require mask mandates outdoors within an hour drive of where I live that I know of – and believe me, I’ve looked. In addition, all outdoor activities, like soccer games, are masked. My kids don’t participate in any activities through their school, as the school ended ALL non-virtual extracurricular activities due to Covid. So our experience isn’t just limited to the school.
Silent lunches and travel restrictions are also standard in the area, though I think they’re more difficult to enforce in the public school system, so possibly flaunted.
I think it’s terribly sad that preschoolers think it’s normal to wear a mask. That, to me, is an argument against masking, not for it. Normalization of masking among young children is horrifying to me.
Again, “part of the school day” is at least 7 hours for my kids, and 9 hours for Isla, and as many hours as my youngest would spend in daycare.
Lastly, why do you think masking is temporary? If I believed masking would end in the next year, I wouldn’t be bothered. But we are two years in with hospitalizations higher in WA than they have ever been. Do you think Covid is going to go away? And if not, why would people change their tune on masking kids? This is probably the most important point in the whole conversation.
To be clear: I don’t have a problem with *temporary* masking. If schools locally had imposed a mask mandate for a few weeks or even a couple months during the Omicron surge, as the UK did on secondary students there, I would be 100% OK with it. But that is not what’s happening. By any rational definition, what is going on is indefinite or permanent masking.
From the New York Times article I posted:
The chief executive of the Prince George’s County public schools in Maryland recently downplayed the idea of a future without masks, saying: “The only off-ramp I want is the one where Covid no longer exists. I don’t think that that off-ramp will exist.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/opinion/masks-covid-children.html
That is not OK.
Also, you could in fact spend all day at an outdoor preschool. Take a high paying job at one of those slave-like law firms for a couple years. Then quit and become a teacher at an outdoor preschool. Or found your own if you can’t get hired!
I don’t want to be responsible for the care of toddlers all day! Yikes no way!
Sorry Becca – you just want to hang out with the toddlers as a classmate? Or you’re envisioning an adult program?
The other problem with outdoor preschool is that they go out in all weathers. While I think this is wonderful and character building for my kids, I personally have no desire to spend several hours a week in the winter “playing” outside in the rain.
i am totally envisioning an adult program, with the responsibility level of preschoolers playing outside all day.
Taking a step back I think it is useful to think about what our goals are with masks. Here are some I have heard or can think of:
1- reduce spread in schools (or caused by) of non-symptomatic spread.
2 – protect teachers
3 – protect vulnerable kids or even regular kids
Now let’s think about the ability of masks + kids + omicron to achieve them,
1 – probably some good. Best if in area of high adult immunity ( vaccine or otherwise). Best if not cloth mask. But not clear with omicron if there is much non symptomatic spread given speed of it. Probably best as one part of comprehensive program involving regular testing.
2 – minor good here. Kn95 masks for teachers themselves is sufficient though. Anything less is not valid against omicron. And if teachers are healthy and vaccinated definitely probably masking everyone is not really going to do much better. Because let’s be real honest about quality of kid masks and kids wearing masks properly at all times…especially anyone under 4.
3 – minor good here too for same reasons as #2. And here I’ll differentiate between over and under 5. Over 5 your kid has best chance being vaccinated and wearing a kn95 or KF94 mask properly. Relying on others to do so is not a great plan. Under 5 this is just probably not going to make that much difference with Omicron. It is airborne, highly contagious and luckily not a big risk (compared to other childhood illnesses) to young kids. RSV is as bad and we never masked for it. Plus the ability for kids 4 or younger to wear proper masks reliably is laughable. I cannot even find a medical grad mask to fit my almost 5?year old and she’s good at trying to keep it on. But perhaps we should only stick to 5+ if talking public.
As for harm, I don’t know. I think my kids have been fine mostly. But L does have some issues with letter sounds that May be caused by masking and no access to watching teacher lips. For the 5+ community I’d be all for dropping masks once spread has come down. But if we are honest about it given the risk it’s probably time to move to optional. I mean at the height of previous flu seasons we did not mask. Nor for RSV or any of the other nasty things that go around a daycare like hand-foot-mouth, roseola, 5th disease…