A slew of schools across America are reinstating mask mandates amid a surge in positive Covid tests - despite evidence they harm children's learning.
New York health officials are also providing free masks to schools in the state in response to rising Covid rates and absences, while face coverings are being strongly encouraged in some classrooms in Los Angeles.
The new calls for masks are a throwback to the dark days of the pandemic and come despite the growing body of evidence that masks were not only not effective at preventing the spread of the virus, but also hampered children's learning, social interactions and natural immunity to other infections.
In Maryland this week, an elementary school principal mandated several days of mask-wearing for a class of kindergartners after at least four people tested positive for the virus. New York’s governor announced a plan to distribute free N95 and KN95 masks to schools this fall, although the state is not requiring their use. And in Alabama, a junior high school in Sumter County declared in late August that mask-wearing would begin again for everyone — students, staff and visitors.
Even though these campuses are the exception, as few schools require masks, lawmakers and presidential candidates have seized on the issue. A group of Senate Republicans unveiled legislation this week to prohibit federal mask mandates on domestic air travel, public transit and public schools through the end of 2024. On Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) shared a warning in response to the Maryland elementary school action: “If you want to voluntarily wear a mask, fine, but leave our kids the hell alone.” (The school, Rosemary Hills in Silver Spring, boosted security and kept recess indoors because of online backlash the same day.)
Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, suggested in a Fox News interview Wednesday that mandated school mask-wearing is an attack on parental rights, and former president Donald Trump promised last month that, if reelected, he would “use every available authority to cut federal funding to any school” that imposed a mask rule.
School administrators say they are not eager to relive the bitter fights over masks and vaccination that dominated the first two years of the pandemic. Josh Tovar, a high school principal in Texas’s Garland Independent School District, said his campus is seeing a spike in student and staff infections that is depriving some classes of teachers. But, Tovar said, he would never consider requiring masks again, even if he had that power.
“There’s just a different mentality here in this state in regard to the mask,” he said. “I literally just left a principals’ meeting where we discussed seeing an uptick, but no one mentioned or thought to bring up requiring masks. It’s not on the radar.”
Others are taking half-measures. In Alabama, Talladega City Schools shared a short post in late August encouraging mask-wearing. But officials stopped short of a requirement, said Superintendent Quentin J. Lee, despite the surge of cases in his district and the emails from teachers concerned about infection. The Talladega Facebook post says: “Please note this is not a mask mandate.”
Lee said he wanted to tread carefully because “it’s a very polarized subject.” He still remembers politically and racially tinged complaints about mask-wearing from earlier in the pandemic.
Since the Facebook post went up, he said, “We’ve had mixed reviews. Some parents have been very appreciative and thankful. Some parents think that it’s a hoax and we shouldn’t be doing it — but that’s why we made it a suggestion.”
The moves toward mask-wearing come as virus rates in the United States are rising by multiple measures, although hospitalizations are far below where they were a year ago. It is difficult to tell how widespread mild cases are because at-home test results are not reported, and many people are not testing, since free tests are no longer widely available.
Still, experts worry people are more susceptible to getting the virus in this latest uptick because most Americans have not received the latest booster — including 80 percent of school-age children — and the newest variants are adept at getting around immunity from vaccinations and prior infections.
In Maryland, Rosemary Hills Elementary School principal Rebecca Irwin Kennedy formalized the mask mandate in a letter sent to parents on Tuesday.
It explained she made the move after 'three or more individuals' caught the virus in the last ten days.
She demanded students don thick N95 masks to 'keep our school environment as safe as possible', despite a recent study finding the mask may expose users to dangerous levels of toxic chemicals.
And while even embattled medical guru Dr Anthony Fauci admits there is a lack of evidence the masks stop the spread of Covid, Kennedy told parents the N95s will only become optional after 10 days.
The letter caused widespread fury among those who see the decision as a slippery slope back to Covid lockdowns, with Donald Trump Jr posting to X: 'DO NOT COMPLY!!!'
While Covid cases are rising in the US, public health officials say most people are experiencing mild symptoms comparable to a cold or flu.
Children are as likely as adults to get Covid, but their risk of becoming severely ill from the virus is much lower.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed 8,000 patients admitted to hospitals nationwide in the last week of August, up 12 percent on the previous seven-day spell and the first week-on-week rise since December.
Despite the rise, rates remain at historic lows. For comparison, there were 150,000 Covid admissions per week at the height of the pandemic in January 2021, and hospitalizations reached as high as 44,000 a week earlier this year.
Experts have put the spike down to the natural waning of immunity, which happens around six months after the previous wave of infections.
The decision to return to mask-wearing in Maryland also comes despite experts warning that the highly contagious virus is likely to be a lasting fixture of everyday life, similar to the common cold.
'One thing that Americans must understand: SARS-CoV-2 and its variants are never going away,' Dr Brett Osborn, a board-certified neurosurgeon in West Palm Beach, Florida, told Fox News Digital.
'It is here to stay because its mutation rate is high, just like influenza.'
Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), whose district includes the Montgomery County kindergarten, said a mandate can still be a sensible, “science-based” answer to an outbreak. “Rosemary Hills Elementary addressed a small covid outbreak with appropriate prevention measures that unfortunately, though inevitably, drew the attention of right-wing covid deniers,” he said.
To parent Christina Headrick in Northern Virginia, the fact school officials and politicians nationwide are having conversations about mask-wearing marks a frustrating failure.
Much earlier in the pandemic, Headrick, who has two children in public school, helped launch a parent group and website dedicated to ensuring a safe return to classrooms in Arlington County. The group advocated in particular for improved ventilation and air filtration. Almost three years later, Headrick feels her efforts have gone unheeded — not only in Arlington, but throughout the country.
“The real issue here isn’t mask mandates or not mask mandates. It’s a complete failure to address the core issue, which is our public schools need to have a major upgrade in terms of clean air,” she said.
If her children’s schools ever reinstated mask-wearing to address an outbreak, Headrick said, she would probably be okay with it, so long as officials’ reasoning passed muster. But another part of her would be furious. She always thought masks should be a tool of last resort, when every other method flopped. Instead, they’re at the center of the debate. Again.
“Masks are such a political issue. We’re not talking about the right things,” she said. “I can’t believe we are in this place, still.”
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