Newsom Answers Orange County School Board's Threat Of Lawsuit

ORANGE COUNTY, CA —Gov. Gavin Newsom stands behind the need for students and teachers to wear masks as in-person instruction resumes across the state, he reported Friday. This is despite multiple threats of legal action, like the one planned by the Orange County Board of Education.

Newsom visited a school in San Bernardino County and said the mask mandate is critical to limiting the spread of COVID-19 and keeping campuses open.

"We want to keep our kids safe," Newsome said. "We want them back in person for in-person instruction. We don't want our kids back on Zoom school. We don't want our kids back online with all the disparities that were self-evident in another classroom I was in when I asked them how their download speeds are. And the fact that a young child, in first-grade, is talking about download speeds suggests everything you need to know about the nature of the impact of this pandemic and how disproportionate it has been."

Newsom said he expects school districts across the state to follow all safety recommendations, which he said: "are in line with the CDC and aligned with the American Academy of Pediatrics, which I'm more interested in their counsel and advice than, respectfully, those that are seeking to move in the direction of Florida and other states."

Florida leads the nation's new COVID infections as of Friday afternoon.

Schools in Orange County begin to return to the classroom starting Aug. 16. While all public school spokespeople have asserted with Patch that the CDC and state rules will be followed upon school openings.

The Orange County Board of Education voted Tuesday night to sue California officials over the mask mandate, challenging Newsom's ongoing assertion of emergency rule-making powers due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"When necessary, the board will fight to protect the health, safety and welfare of our county's kids at school. Unfortunately, with the governor's most recent action to force Orange County's children, even those as young as 5 and 6 years old, to endure an academic year covering their faces for hours on end, the time to fight has come again," according to a statement posted on the board's website.

School children in general "are neither at risk from COVID-19 nor likely to spread it," the school board stated in a release.

This claim was disputed by some local medical experts, including Dr. Dan Cooper of UC Irvine's Institute for Immunology. Cooper has been active in the university's COVID-19 pandemic research, called the assertion "a falsehood."

"We've learned that children are at risk of COVID. Yes, it's a milder disease, but to say they're not at risk is a crime. It's a lie," Cooper said, adding that kids are also able to spread the virus.

Epidemiologist and UC Irvine professor of population health and disease prevention, Andrew Noymer has also disputed the Board of Education's claims.

"Kids spread COVID. There's no doubt about it," Noymer told CNS. "It's true they are not as much at risk of symptomatic infection, but that's not the point. The state mask mandate is sound, and I'd much rather see kids in school than at home for a second year."

A pair of parent groups filed a similar lawsuit last week in San Diego County, challenging school children's mask mandate.

City News Service, Patch Editor Ashley Ludwig contributed to this report.