Glenn Youngkin Triggers a Mask Meltdown in Virginia

US
Then-Virginia Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin speaks during a campaign event in Alexandria, Va., October 30, 2021. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In King’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” dated April 16, 1963, he wrote, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

On the menu today: Virginia’s new Republican governor issued an executive order declaring that parents will decide whether their children wear masks to school, and several school districts are declaring their intent to ignore or defy the executive order, including Fairfax, Prince William, Alexandria, Arlington Richmond, and Henrico counties.

Virginia’s Masks-In-School Wars Begins

Let us examine the freak-out that is occurring in Virginia, as a Washington Post headline declares that the state’s new governor, Glenn Youngkin, “terrifies” some people.

First, in early 2021, the Virginia state legislature passed, and governor Ralph Northam signed into law, a bill declaring that:

Each school board shall (i) adopt, implement, and, when appropriate, update specific parameters for the provision of in-person instruction and (ii) provide such in-person instruction in a manner in which it adheres, to the maximum extent practicable, to any currently applicable mitigation strategies for early childhood care and education programs and elementary and secondary schools to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 that have been provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This is why Virginia Democratic state senator L. Louis Lucas declared, “Cry harder, governor! Your executive orders do not change LAWS we passed. Better learn how government works, we elect governors, not dictators” and maturely added, “Please retweet this before we drown in these tears!” (I can remember a time when Virginia Democrats believed acting immaturely on Twitter was one of the worst things an elected official could do, from roughly January 20, 2017, to January 20, 2021.)

Those who support masking contend that masks qualify as a “currently applicable mitigation strategy” endorsed by the CDC. But the legislation doesn’t specifically mention masks, and the GOP-controlled state legislature could well pass legislation declaring that masks are no longer required.

As for the question of whether Youngkin’s executive order is “terrifying” and endangers children . . . every child from ages five to eleven has been eligible to get vaccinated since November. Every child from twelve to 18 has been eligible to get vaccinated since May, and the FDA approved boosters for kids twelve and up at the beginning of the month.

Right now, 89.7 percent of adults in Virginia have one dose of a vaccine, and 78.5 percent of all adults in Virginia are fully vaccinated. Also, 52.6 percent of children in Virginia from ages five to 17 are considered vaccinated. Thirty-five percent of Virginians between the ages of five and eleven have received at least one vaccine dose, as have 71 percent of Virginias between the ages of twelve and 15 and 74 percent of Virginians aged 16 and 17.

Vaccination enormously reduces the likelihood that a case of Covid-19 will be severe. As of this morning, out of the 5.7 million Virginians who are fully vaccinated, 1.9 percent, or about 110,000, developed Covid-19. (That figure is likely a considerable undercount, as people who test positive on a home test may not get around to informing their doctors or public-health authorities.) A bit more than 3,000 fully vaccinated Virginians have ended up in the hospital with Covid-19, and 999 fully vaccinated Virginians have died and been classified as “Covid-19 deaths.” (The Virginia Department of Health spells out what constitutes a Covid-associated death here. Short version: no, they’re not counting accidents, suicides, or homicides.)

In other words, if a Virginia parent is concerned about their child catching Covid-19, they have the option of getting that child vaccinated, and if that child is twelve or older, they have the option to get that child boosted. That is the single best thing they can do to mitigate the effects of a virus that Dr. Anthony Fauci has said will infect “just about everybody.”

Second, parents still have the option of having their child wear a mask. It is worth keeping in mind that mask mandates have done little to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant, if they’ve done anything at all. The District of Columbia reinstated its mask mandate on December 21, requiring masks in offices, gyms, stores, entertainment venues, houses of worship, restaurants (unless you are actively eating or drinking), and other establishments. Masks were always required in D.C. schools, health-care facilities, and on public transit. On December 21, the District had a bit more than 76,000 total cases since the start of the pandemic; as of yesterday, it had more than 121,000. In other words, more than 37 percent of the District’s total cases since the start of the pandemic have occurred in the past month, after the mask mandate was put into effect.

You probably saw the assessment of Dr. Leanna Wen, a CNN medical analyst, declaring on the news network on December 22 that, “Cloth masks are not appropriate for this pandemic. It was — it is not appropriate for Omicron, it was not appropriate for Delta, Alpha or any of the previous variants either because we’re dealing with something that’s airborne, we’re dealing with a virus that’s extremely contagious.” So for two years, we’ve been having fistfights, brawls, and stabbings over masks that “are not appropriate for this pandemic.”

Under Governor Youngkin’s executive order, if you want your child wearing a mask to school, your child wears a mask to school. Nothing in the executive order bars you from making the choice that you think is best for your child. Governor Youngkin isn’t making anyone do anything.

Whether or not the kid down the row in the classroom wears a mask is going to have a marginal effect, if any, on whether your child catches the Omicron variant. And remember, kids take off those masks during lunch or snack time, anyway.

If your child wants to wear a mask, and doesn’t mind wearing a mask, fine. Let them keep wearing a mask. But the fact that your child is comfortable wearing a mask does not mean that other parents are making up stories about their children being uncomfortable wearing masks. It doesn’t mean that other parents are unreasonable for being worried about language and speech development, overall cognitive development, mental health, and other issues.

(Notice the declaration that “kids are resilient” gets deployed as a justification for keeping schools closed at the behest of the teachers’ unions, but apparently declaring “kids are resilient” in the context of taking off masks is absolute madness. It’s amazing how the resilience of kids expands or contracts depending upon what the teachers’ unions want.)

The Washington Post article above uses an example of an immunocompromised second-grader in Alexandria, who recently underwent chemotherapy for a brain tumor.

Now, if a parent in one of my children’s classes said, “Hey, my seven-year-old just underwent chemotherapy for a brain tumor, would you mind having your child wear a mask because my child is currently immunocompromised?” — Good heavens, of course my kids would wear masks when they were around that child. I would like to think just about every parent would have the same response. No one wants to see an immunocompromised child get an infection and face a serious health problem.

But it doesn’t make sense to set statewide policies on the assumption that every classroom will have a student recovering from chemotherapy. Extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary measures, but those extraordinary measures don’t fit ordinary circumstances. No one is risking anyone else’s life by going unmasked in a classroom of young, healthy students.

For two years, we’ve been locked into these arguments, marked by the enraging accusation, “I care about our children, and you don’t!” Every parent cares about their child — even the parents whom you think are idiots. The parents who want to mask up their kids are afraid that their children will be one of the rare cases of a child catching Covid-19 and having serious health effects. (According to the American Academy of Pediatrics survey of the states, 0.1 percent to 1.6 percent of all child COVID-19 cases have resulted in hospitalization.)

The parents who don’t want to mask up their kids anymore are afraid that we’ve inflicted an unprecedented restriction on their lives and are stunting or warping their development through nonsensical rules. In Sonoma County, Calif., the county health officer wants to restrict spectators at youth sporting events to 20 percent capacity. Meanwhile, just a bit further south in San Francisco, the Golden State Warriors are playing in an arena at full capacity. Why is it dangerous for parents to watch their kids play but not dangerous for those same parents to go into a full arena to watch an NBA team?

Note that Youngkin’s executive order also stated that, “Local schools must ensure they are improving inspection, testing, maintenance, repair, replacement and upgrades of equipment to improve the indoor air quality in school facilities, including mechanical and nonmechanical heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, filtering, purification, fans, control systems and window and door repair.” Virginia has received $2.1 billion over three rounds of “Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief.” There is absolutely no excuse for any school district claiming that they can’t afford to ensure sufficient ventilation and air filtering to minimize the risk of Covid-19.

Back in August, Joseph G. Allen and Helen Jenkins wrote a good op-ed in the New York Times observing that, “Any organization setting a mask mandate at this point in the pandemic in the United States must pair that mandate with an offramp plan. Sleepwalking into indefinite masking is not in anyone’s interests and can increase distrust after an already very difficult year.”

What is happening in Virginia makes abundantly clear that many school boards, public-health officials, and parents do not believe in an offramp. They may not be willing to say it out loud, but effectively, they support masking forever. The population will never be vaccinated and boosted enough, and the virus will never be mild enough. They will always be fearful of another variant emerging, and they will always see justification for keeping masks, capacity restrictions, and other limits on our daily lives. In their minds, March 2020 was a turning point in human history, and they will never allow our lives to go back to the pre-pandemic normal.

Last night, White House press secretary Jen Psaki jabbed at Youngkin, tweeting, “Thank you to [Arlington Public Schools] for standing up for our kids, teachers and administrators and their safety in the midst of a transmissible variant.”

I notice that she described herself as an “Arlington County parent,” not an “Arlington County Public Schools parent.” Is her kindergartner in public school or private school?

ADDENDUM: In case you missed it yesterday, the Washington Post editorial board wants Congress to pass legislation that would authorize the government to require people to get vaccinated and boosted or lose their jobs.

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