Letter To The Editor: No Masks For Schoolchildren

To the Editor:

How much longer are we going to keep masking our children in schools? This summer our children will go maskless at camps, summer school, restaurants, museums, family trips and on vacations all over the country. To force our children to wear masks again in the fall is punitive at this point.

Parents all over our county are demanding that the choice to mask be left to the parents.

It is our belief that there is no scientific evidence that masks prevent the transmission of respiratory illness, and there is now ample evidence to suggest children are being harmed physically and emotionally by mask mandates. As child psychologist Dr. Mark McDonald stated in a recent meeting with the Florida governor over masks, “Masks are nothing more than a symbol of fear and anxiety. They do nothing to help us medically. They do nothing to help our country, and we need to take them off of our children’s faces and we need to let them roam and breathe freely.”

We do not want our children to be forced to endure another year in masks. Parents are fed up now! We are being told that to receive an education our children need to wear a medical device that inhibits their breathing. Let that sink in. We are fifteen months into this thing and our children have suffered enough.

Parents and students have been very patient in this whole process. We understood that there was much uncertainty in the beginning of the pandemic. But data clearly shows that children are overwhelmingly unaffected by COVID. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data for the year from April 2020 to April 2021 shows that COVID was less deadly to the under age 14 group than the seasonal flu. We never put masks on children before with the flu, so why are we taking these mitigation measures now?

It has been fifteen months and this is now affecting a THIRD school year. Our students are about a year behind in their education, forced to wear a mask and to think of their fellow classmates as possible disease vectors. This is UNACCEPTABLE! Parents are standing up for their children. When will our school districts and our teachers join us in this fight?

Sincerely,
Christopher Harrigan