For This School Mask Choice Group In Wilton, The Tide Is Turning

WILTON, CT — The state mask mandate for school children may be on its last legs.

During a news conference Wednesday, Gov. Ned Lamont said his administration was "taking a good hard look at the numbers," and deciding in less than a week whether to lift the order requiring school children to mask up in class. The governor signalled that if he were to relax the mandate, he would toss the mask-mandating decisions from the state over to the school districts.

For Wilton's Heidi Cocca, that would be a step in the right direction. She's the mother of a 6th grader at Middlebrook School, and a 9th grader at Wilton High School. Since the start of the 2021-22 school, she has been an activist for mask choice.

Cocca is also an admin for the Instagram group Mask Choice Wilton which advocates returning the decision to mask a child in school to the parents. The group has seen a huge spike in membership since the start of the new year. Cocca credits the wave of omicron infections over the Christmas holidays was the tipping point.

Residents who had "done everything," including wearing masks, completing their vaccine cycle and getting a booster shot, still got COVID-19, she said.

"I think that was the final straw for a lot of people."

The turning of the calendar page to 2022 was also a wake-up call for many families in town, Cocca said. The two weeks that health officials suggested were needed early in the pandemic to slow the curve "is now two years."

The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance urges the use of N95 and KN95 masks that better filter the virus, but these have not been required by the state's mandate, only recommended. Officially, the CDC is recommending masks for the unvaccinated and for the fully vaccinated in an area with substantial or high coronavirus transmission.

Pushing back against the guidance from the country's biggest public health institution can be intimidating and make an activist feel isolated, Cocca said. It's for those people the IG group was created.

"The first thing I want people to know is they are not alone," Cocca said. The most common refrain in the messages she receives as an admin is, "I thought I was the only person who felt this way. I'm so glad to see there are other people."

According to NPR, this group of "other people," those who are "pro-vaccine, pro-evidence-based restrictions, but against masking kids," is expanding rapidly. "They're a growing chorus of pediatricians, neuroscientists, special education teachers, and parents who are concerned about the effects of prolonged masking on children."

The Connecticut school mask mandate was a product of Lamont's emergency powers, set to expire on Feb. 15 unless extended by the state legislature. As COVID-19 cases continue to drop in the state, and as a populist tide against school masks rises nationwide, it would not be unexpected for the governor to take the that executive order off the table in advance of the deadline.

Cocca said Mask Choice Wilton's parent wrangling and organizing would switch into high gear if the school district decided to keep the mandate in place after the state dropped it.

"Your mask is for yourself, it's not protecting other people," Cocca told Patch. "I think we can very clearly say that went out the window a long time ago. But if you yourself are scared and nervous, or you have a grandma with a preexisting condition, then feel free to continue wearing a mask. That is your choice."