Maryland Elementary School Reinstates Mask Mandate for Children

Pre school children wearing protective face masks indoors at kindergarten.
Halfpoint Images/Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

A Maryland elementary school is forcing some children to mask back up, per a letter given to parents Tuesday.

The letter — signed by the school’s principal, Rebecca Irwin Kennedy — informs parents that three “or more” individuals tested positive for the coronavirus. As a result, the school is taking steps to “keep our school environment as safe as possible for in-person teaching and learning and to prevent further transmission of COVID-19 in this group.”

According to the letter, the school has distributed KN95 masks, and students and staff in “identified classes or activities will be required to mask while in school for the next 10 days, except while eating or drinking.” According to Outkick’s Clay Travis, the classroom in question is a kindergarten classroom. In other words, the school is forcing five and six-year-olds to wear masks.

After ten days, masking will become optional, per the letter. The school is also making rapid test kits available to students.

“Thank you for supporting us in taking these steps to ensure staff and students remain healthy for in-person learning,” the letter adds, also providing a link to vaccination sites.

Nowhere in the letter is it mentioned that masking does not effectively prevent one from contracting the virus, nor does it mention that vaccination does not prevent one from contracting or transmitting coronavirus.

The move comes as President Joe Biden began masking indoors, yet again, following his twice vaccinated and boosted wife, Jill Biden, testing positive for the virus a second time.

“As far as the steps he is taking since the president was with the first lady yesterday, he will be masking while indoors and around people in alignment with CDC guidance,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced this week.

“And as has been the practice in the past, the president will remove his mask when sufficiently distanced from others indoors and while outside, as well,” she added.

This comes even though various studies show masks to be relatively ineffective.

A study from the Cochrane Library, for example, found that medical or surgical masks make “little or no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness (ILI)/COVID-19-like illness compared to not wearing masks.” Further, the study’s authors admitted they are “very uncertain on the effects of N95/P2 respirators compared with medical/surgical masks on the outcome of clinical respiratory illness” but said the “use of a N95/P2 respirators compared to medical/surgical masks probably makes little or no difference for the objective and more precise outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza infection.”

However, none of that should come as a surprise. Even though he pushed masks throughout the pandemic, former White House Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci privately admitted in a February 5, 2020, email to former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell that the “typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.”

Fauci has since tried to save face, now asserting that masks were not effective on the “broad population” but still had an “advantage” on an “individual level.”

WATCH — Fauci: Masks Didn’t Work for “Broad Population,” but on Individual Basis, “There Is an Advantage”

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.