From “masking forever” to masking until March, perhaps, is the new theme in four deep-blue liberal states as of this week. Despite the ongoing battle in Virginia, where school boards run by Democrats are clinging to their mask mandates, other elected Democrats see the writing on the wall when it comes to the ongoing authoritarian hypocrisy of mandating masks on school children.
The “science” which is politicized and abused to suit whatever narrative authoritarians want to use hasn’t ever been supportive of mandating masks in schools. Europe has avoided doing so for young children because it’s painfully obvious masks are detrimental to childhood development, speech patterns, and communication.
It’s absurd it took this long, but we now have four blue states on board to get back to “normal” for kids in school, whatever that looks like, but at least the pendulum is swinging in the right direction:
The governors of four states announced plans Monday to lift statewide mask requirements in schools by the end of February or March, citing the rapid easing of COVID-19?s omicron surge.
The decisions in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Oregon were announced as state and local governments grapple with which virus restrictions to jettison and which ones to keep in place. The changes also come amid a growing sense that the virus is never going to go away and Americans need to find a way to coexist with it.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy called the move “a huge step back to normalcy for our kids” and said individual school districts will be free to continue requiring masks after the state mandate ends March 7.
Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and Oregon are hardly bastions of conservatism and hardly areas where elected Democrats seem like they’d suffer much if they announced tomorrow that kids will be masked until the end of time.
Yet, they’re all coming together around a similar time and announcing an intention to return to normal.
Why?
Sure does seem like the polling on this issue must be getting gruesome for Democrats heading into the midterms. It was independents and moderate Democrats joining Republicans in Virginia to put Glenn Youngkin over the top, based partly on draconian school mask mandates and other Covid issues.
The White House knows it too which is why you can expect the CDC guidance, which currently recommends masking all students in K-12 education, to possibly change in coming weeks as cases continue dropping. If the CDC and White House get out of the way, it’ll make it easier for Democrat-controlled states and school boards to ease their restrictions without looking like they caved to Republican pressure.
Covid restrictions are unpopular generally, and especially so with independents and Republicans. Even Democrats with their ultra risk-averse notions of driving infections down to zero are getting tired of the nonsense.
It’s an election year, and Democrats need to stop standing in the way of “normal” and stop imposing mandates and restrictions on children that aren’t being imposed on adults.
The winds of change are blowing, and Democrats don’t want to get blown out of office in November due to grasping at garbage science to impose control and mandates.
