When can we lose masks in elementary school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I appear to be a minority in this area, but I'm so upset to hear kids at our charter will be required to wear masks in the fall. Couldn't they at least say they're waiting to hear what guidance will be in the fall? Are they going to have little kids wearing masks for another year and a half until the vaccine is approved for them? Is there any hope of dropping them sooner if spread is low? It seems so unnecessary. I wish they would drop the rest of the theater as well and let kids interact normally in their classrooms.
Anyone have any insight?

Clearly, you are a complete idiot.

Learn the science and please get your children educated better than you.

The science is that kids are at little risk and any unvaccinated adult is choosing to take a risk

[Anonymous]

Agreed. The risk to young kids seems to be so, so low -- lower than flu. It makes me sad to think of these young kids in masks for another year for no reason. It's not reasonable.

[Anonymous]

It’s like we’re being asked to put clown makeup on our kids every single day because some people have a superstition it’ll ward off evil spirits. Yeah it doesn’t technically “hurt anyone” but... WHY? And there’s about the same amount of evidence that masks on kids are beneficial at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s like we’re being asked to put clown makeup on our kids every single day because some people have a superstition it’ll ward off evil spirits. Yeah it doesn’t technically “hurt anyone” but... WHY? And there’s about the same amount of evidence that masks on kids are beneficial at this point.

There’s a clown here, but it’s not the kids ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. The risk to young kids seems to be so, so low -- lower than flu. It makes me sad to think of these young kids in masks for another year for no reason. It's not reasonable.

The risk is not lower than flu. Get off Facebook.

[Anonymous]

I hope they keep the masks even once vaccines are available. Kids are germy and gross. They struggle to cover their mouths when they cough and sneeze. Masks can help with diseases like the flu in addition to covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the rationale for dropping masks indoors since they are not vaccinated? I agree, no masks outdoors though.

Because they are uncomfortable, interfere with teaching, and uneccesary when there’s extremely low community spread.

My kids have not complained about masks while doing IPL. What interferes with learning is going to school 2 hours a day, 4 or 2 days a week, as is the case for my kids in a DCPS ES. Masks while indoors is the easiest thing to keep doing so we can return to a normal schedule until kids can get the vaccine

a vaccine for kids may never happen.

I'm surprised how little people are talking about this. The FDA recently had a meeting where they were debating whether the rationale for vaccinating children is strong enough given their extremely low risk. Many other countries are only vaccinating high-risk kids.

There is also serious debate going on about whether you can authorize the vaccine under an EUA for small children, again given their extremely low risk. It's not really an emergency for them. Not doing an EUA would definitely push the timeline out further.

It's one of the reasons why Pfizer is testing much lower doses in trials - the tension between whether the vaccine or COVID has more risk for small children. Again, both are likely to be extremely low-risk - but will the vaccines be so much lower risk than already low risk from COVID?

It feels like we are making all sort of policies around the timing of a childrens' vaccine - which may not happen or happen anytime soon - versus measuring the risk of spread in the community. If there is no EUA for the children's vaccine but we're below a 1% positivity rate as we are now and COVID remains low-risk to children, are we going to mask them for another year or two? That just seems unnecessarily harmful.

[Anonymous]

OP, I agree with you but I don't know how to advocate for this because some of the comments on this thread demonstrate how hard it is to have a reasonable, science and fact based discussion of the benefits and costs of mask-wearing for young kids. People think being pro-science means being pro-mask. They think discussing the negatives of mask-wearing means you are anti-mask AND anti-science. And they think arguing that the negatives of mask-wearing might outweigh the benefits under certain circumstances that are becoming more likely means you want people to die. It is hard.

I say this as someone whose 4yo has been wearing a mask to daycare/school for a year, and I was fine with it and made sure she knew how to wear it and had properly fitting masks and reinforced proper mask wearing at home. I'm not anti-mask at all and I think when case rates were high and vaccines weren't available to anyone, masks were a small price for any of us to pay in order for our kids to have some amount of in-person school and socialization.

But as case rates drop and adults get vaccinated, the costs of mask-wearing at school for kids, and especially very young children currently in the prime language acquisition and socialization window, go way up. These risks are not something you can observe just by watching your kid wearing a mask at school one day. Yes, kids are adaptable. That does not mean that wearing masks, and having their teachers wear masks, for two or more years during a vital learning window won't have costs. We need to talk about those costs. If we have an alternative means of controlling spread and protecting vulnerable adults (which we do -- vaccines), rates are low, and the risk posed to children of Covid is incredibly low, then it is simply bad science to enforce mask wearing which could have an increasingly negative impact on small children the longer it goes on.

Did that help? Anyone convinced to even entertain the idea that if case rates drop low enough, we could also drop the mask mandate in schools, at least for the youngest learners?

[Anonymous]

I was also kind of disappointed to see the rules requiring masking already established for the fall. I feel like a lot could change.

[Anonymous]

The science is that kids are at little risk and any unvaccinated adult is choosing to take a risk

+1000

But politics…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the rationale for dropping masks indoors since they are not vaccinated? I agree, no masks outdoors though.

Because they are uncomfortable, interfere with teaching, and uneccesary when there’s extremely low community spread.

My kids have not complained about masks while doing IPL. What interferes with learning is going to school 2 hours a day, 4 or 2 days a week, as is the case for my kids in a DCPS ES. Masks while indoors is the easiest thing to keep doing so we can return to a normal schedule until kids can get the vaccine

a vaccine for kids may never happen.

I'm surprised how little people are talking about this. The FDA recently had a meeting where they were debating whether the rationale for vaccinating children is strong enough given their extremely low risk. Many other countries are only vaccinating high-risk kids.

There is also serious debate going on about whether you can authorize the vaccine under an EUA for small children, again given their extremely low risk. It's not really an emergency for them. Not doing an EUA would definitely push the timeline out further.

It's one of the reasons why Pfizer is testing much lower doses in trials - the tension between whether the vaccine or COVID has more risk for small children. Again, both are likely to be extremely low-risk - but will the vaccines be so much lower risk than already low risk from COVID?

It feels like we are making all sort of policies around the timing of a childrens' vaccine - which may not happen or happen anytime soon - versus measuring the risk of spread in the community. If there is no EUA for the children's vaccine but we're below a 1% positivity rate as we are now and COVID remains low-risk to children, are we going to mask them for another year or two? That just seems unnecessarily harmful.


Truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I agree with you but I don't know how to advocate for this because some of the comments on this thread demonstrate how hard it is to have a reasonable, science and fact based discussion of the benefits and costs of mask-wearing for young kids. People think being pro-science means being pro-mask. They think discussing the negatives of mask-wearing means you are anti-mask AND anti-science. And they think arguing that the negatives of mask-wearing might outweigh the benefits under certain circumstances that are becoming more likely means you want people to die. It is hard.

I say this as someone whose 4yo has been wearing a mask to daycare/school for a year, and I was fine with it and made sure she knew how to wear it and had properly fitting masks and reinforced proper mask wearing at home. I'm not anti-mask at all and I think when case rates were high and vaccines weren't available to anyone, masks were a small price for any of us to pay in order for our kids to have some amount of in-person school and socialization.

But as case rates drop and adults get vaccinated, the costs of mask-wearing at school for kids, and especially very young children currently in the prime language acquisition and socialization window, go way up. These risks are not something you can observe just by watching your kid wearing a mask at school one day. Yes, kids are adaptable. That does not mean that wearing masks, and having their teachers wear masks, for two or more years during a vital learning window won't have costs. We need to talk about those costs. If we have an alternative means of controlling spread and protecting vulnerable adults (which we do -- vaccines), rates are low, and the risk posed to children of Covid is incredibly low, then it is simply bad science to enforce mask wearing which could have an increasingly negative impact on small children the longer it goes on.

Did that help? Anyone convinced to even entertain the idea that if case rates drop low enough, we could also drop the mask mandate in schools, at least for the youngest learners?

It makes perfect sense to me. I don’t think we are in the minority. I think there are more of us than you think and more people are speaking up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope they keep the masks even once vaccines are available. Kids are germy and gross. They struggle to cover their mouths when they cough and sneeze. Masks can help with diseases like the flu in addition to covid.

Are you serious? I suppose you think everyone should wear masks forever then, just in case? That's ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think mask guidelines should follow community spread metrics. If the spread and new case count is low then the systems can relax the masking. If or when the spread increases (winter) masks can be implements again. Blanket mandates are much tougher to swallow at this point.

This makes some sense but I fear getting my 4 year old used to no mask then masks again would be far harder than just staying the course for now.

[Anonymous]

Personally I think they are saying kids will wear masks in the Fall because it will be a lot harder to go from the message of "no masks to masks" than "masks to no masks." I'd like to see no masks in Sept/Oct and reevaluate in November to make sure rates don't begin to rise again with the cold weather. But then I'm no scientist and I didn't even sleep in a Holiday Inn last night so what do I know.