Want SLO County kids back in school? Then stop fighting the mask mandate

We get it. It’s a pain to expect children as young as 4 and 5 to wear face coverings in the classroom.

No one wants that for kids — or for the teachers charged with enforcing the mask rule.

But why take anger out on local school districts? If you want a scapegoat, blame the stubborn anti-vaxxers who turned this into an ideological battle and decided not to listen to health experts.

Thanks to them, we’re not even close to achieving herd immunity and are seeing an alarming resurgence of COVID cases, and now schools are caught in the middle.

The California Public Health Department is requiring masks in the classroom. Schools that don’t comply run the risk of losing certain types of state funding — on top of having to justify their decision to parents who support a mask mandate.

Yet a group of San Luis Obispo County parents who are part of a national group called Moms for Liberty is protesting and threatening to sue local school districts that mandate masks on campus.

Jenny Grinager, chair of the organization’s San Luis Obispo chapter, said forcing children to wear masks can leave them vulnerable to illnesses and could cause a lifetime of mental health issues.

Ironically, a study that Moms for Liberty is using to bolster its claims has been retracted.

The study, “Facemasks in the Covid-19 era: A health hypothesis,” says there is no proof that face masks are effective in preventing the spread of COVID, but have been linked to a variety of health problems, including shortness of breath, headaches, chronic stress, anxiety and depression and that prolonged use can result in chronic diseases and premature death.

Medical Hypotheses, the journal that published the article, later issued a retraction and apologized to readers for publishing a misleading article. Among other problems, the journal found the article had misquoted and selectively cited published papers; it also included unverified data and misrepresented the positions held by the author.

And Medical Hypotheses refuted one of the main points of the article — that masks have not been proven to be effective against COVID-19.

“A broader review of existing scientific evidence clearly shows that approved masks with correct certification, and worn in compliance with guidelines, are an effective prevention of COVID-19 transmission,” the retraction says.

Many parents opposed to masking in schools say they don’t object if other children wear masks. They just don’t want their own kids to be forced to wear them.

Yet if we’re going to mask up, universal masking makes sense.

Remember that adage we learned early on? “My mask protects you. Your mask protects me.”

Besides, do we really want teachers — on top of everything else they are doing — to have to track who’s supposed to be wearing a mask and who isn’t? Also, educators and medical professionals point out that requiring masks for all students levels the playing field and prevents bullying.

We know COVID-19 is a horrible disease. So far, 600,000 Americans have died from the virus.

Thankfully, children have largely been spared from the worst aspects of the pandemic, although the number of childhood COVID-19 cases is rising, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“At this time, it appears that severe illness due to COVID-19 is uncommon among children,” the organization stated in a recent report. “However, there is an urgent need to collect more data on longer-term impacts of the pandemic on children, including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects.”

Since children under 12 aren’t yet eligible to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending all children over 2 wear masks in school, regardless of their vaccination status.

It would be highly irresponsible for elected board members and school district administrators — few of whom are medical experts — to ignore the advice of doctors and instead follow discredited opinions.

Instead of angrily venting at local educators, it makes more sense to look for ways to make this mandate as short-lived and painless as possible.

The most important step is getting all eligible people vaccinated ASAP.

We can also reduce the amount of time students spend wearing masks.

Many schools have incorporated outdoor learning into their lesson plans. Since face coverings aren’t required outdoors, that would cut down on “mask time.”

We’re all tired of the pandemic, and turning every public health restriction or recommendation into another ideological battle is only making matters worse.

We commend schools that have been resolute in carrying out their mission of educating and supporting students under the most trying of circumstances. We strongly urge local school districts to be firm in their commitments to enforce state mandates on masks.

This story was originally published August 3, 2021 at 2:45 PM.