Reply to When should DC drop its school mask mandate?

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Reply to "When should DC drop its school mask mandate?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think people are exaggerating the impact of masks on kids. The most important thing is that they’re in school, together, in person. My kids have never said there was any issue socializing with other kids just because their mask is on. It’s not an issue for them. I’ve actually enjoyed not having them (and us) horribly sick with something 6 months out of the year. It’s so nice to not deal with that![/quote]

My kid has had a half dozen illnesses this school year despite masks (none of them Covid). She's in PK and the kids don't wear their masks properly and even if they do they are wearing cotton masks or thin surgical masks. With kids this age, this means their masks get wet quickly and just aren't doing much. BUT I also know from her teacher that the teachers can't really hear the kids through masks (in part because of the air filtration systems going in the room) and they also struggle to communicate with each other.

I'm glad your kids aren't having an issue but people are not exaggerating the impact of masks. It would have been one thing to mask ECE kids for a few months, or just periodically during surges. Or if they masked indoors but could take them off outdoors and schools could accommodate having a significant part of the day outside in the warmer months. But that's not the case. These kids have been masked in daycares/preschool for two solid years. It is absolutely having an impact on them at this point.

How old are your kids? Can you think back to when they were 3 or 4 years old? Try to imagine what it would have been like for them to be masked for preschool -- do you really think if that had gone on for two years at that age, you'd be eager to just keep doing it even if it didn't seem to be preventing spread of viruses?

I'm not going to speak to what should be done for older kids because I don't have an older kid and I don't know what is best. But I do think we need to remove the mask requirement for ECE kids as soon as feasible (after the current surge ends). And we should only be masking kids this age under rare conditions. I think it's disturbing what we're doing to very young kids. And we are alone in it -- kids under 6 do not mask almost anywhere else in the world. Not all day at school. We are extreme outliers on this front.[/quote]

I agree it's worst for the really young kids, but there is a reason the European CDC doesn't recommend masking kids under 12. It has an effect on everyone, even if they are unaware of it. Observing myself, I have certainly noticed that I am much less inclined to strike up a conversation with someone I don't know, and I find conversations with people I do know more tiresome when they are masked and usually end them more quickly. I cannot imagine it being different for many kids. One of my kids has ASD, and while neither of them complains about their masks, I am positive it makes it even harder for my autistic child to connect with other kids, and I'm sure this is true for many others who may simply be shy and not have a diagnosed disorder that impacts social interaction.

To simply declare that the impact of masks, which is so intuitively obvious, is exaggerated, is not founded on any solid research and clearly a result of a preconceived notion, driven by a combination of politics and anxiety, that masking kids is necessary and good. Combine that with the lack of solid evidence that masks in schools actually have a significant impact on Covid transmission, and it is clear that this practice, which the US is alone in implementing so aggressively among Western nations, needs to end.[/quote]

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