A lot can be said about the campaign to stop school districts from mandating masks for students and staff.
One could note that the subset of Republican governors who have banned mask mandates in their states are hypocrites, each embracing the party’s loud championing of local control, especially local control of education — except apparently when it comes to wearing masks. Can’t trust those local boards of education who dare to put safety first.
One could note that anti-masking parents who loudly champion their “freedom” and right to make “personal choices” don’t understand our laws and Constitution. Freedom and personal choice are not unfettered; they entail responsibility. When your “freedom” to go maskless increases another’s chances of contracting a potentially debilitating or deadly disease, you deny them an actual constitutionally guaranteed right — the one about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Freedom has limits. No one has the “freedom” to drive drunk.
A pediatric nurse attending a recent stormy Tampa school board meeting where parents wearing “Freedom Over Fear” T-shirts blasted masks as “tyranny” and “oppression” referred to the scene as a “pandemic of sincere ignorance.” Pithy and perfect.
But the most mind-boggling aspect of this drive is the way the governors and parents seem willing to sacrifice children, theirs and ours, on the altar of their misguided culture war.
That’s not hyperbole.
Mask-free schools will lead to kids getting COVID-19. Most will be fine. Some will die. Some will be hospitalized. Some will suffer from long-haul COVID. Some will bring the virus home. Many will again have their education interrupted. All of this is already happening with the more dangerous delta variant. And no amount of impassioned ranting or bullying of school boards or irrational government edicts changes those facts.
The U.S. is setting records for new pediatric COVID cases, led by Texas and Florida, whose governors banned mask mandates in schools. Many hospitals are running out of pediatric ICU beds; Dallas had none available last week. Florida had nearly 32,000 new cases among those 19 and younger last week; two kids under 16 died. Much of this came before schools opened. Now that they’ve resumed, more than 10,000 students in Tampa’s Hillsborough County are either in quarantine or isolation because of COVID.
Fortunately, the governors are getting serious pushback and anti-masking parents remain a minority.
In Texas, eight counties and nearly 60 school districts — including the five largest in the state — ignored or challenged Gov. Greg Abbott’s order and set mask requirements; the Paris district ingeniously made masks part of the district dress code. In Florida, more than 1 million students — more than one-third of the state’s enrollment — live in districts that have defied Ron DeSantis’ anti-mask mandate, forcing the governor to back down from his threat to withhold funding. Other GOP governors (Ohio, Indiana, et al.) are endorsing or encouraging school mask mandates in their states.
Abbott and DeSantis still don’t seem to understand their obligation to protect public health during a pandemic, or anytime. But people do: Nearly 70% of Americans in last week’s Axios/Ipsos poll support mask mandates in schools.
The fight could accelerate soon in New York, with incoming Gov. Kathy Hochul supporting school masking. All but one of the 24 Long Island school districts that announced plans as of Friday have made masks mandatory, according to Newsday.
Some anti-mask parents say children don’t like masks. But kids learn from their parents. Outrage is channeled. So is understanding and acceptance. Teachers will tell you that in their students they saw far more of the latter.
Our culture wars are unsettling. But a culture war that puts kids’ lives at stake is one that needs to stop.
Columnist Michael Dobie’s opinions are his own.
