By Rachel Sawicki

DOVER — All Delaware schools are returning to in-person learning over the next few weeks and students, teachers and administrators are required to wear masks. Some parents in Delaware, however, are concerned about the adverse effects mask wearing will potentially have on their children and are considering homeschooling.

“I am the last person to say I’ll homeschool my children, but this has definitely opened up my opinions on that,” said Katie Mumford, mom of two from Milford. “I’m almost there with this masking, and if they mandate vaccines they are definitely gone (from public school).”

Ms. Mumford said mask-wearing has made her daughter fearful.

“She’s afraid to be in public and be around people,” Ms. Mumford said. “Psychologically it is not good for them.”

Gov. John Carney imposed a mask mandate for all kids, teachers and administrators in all public and private K-12 institutions in the state. He spoke to M.O.M., Moms Oppose Mandates, outside of the Delaware Health and Social Services building in downtown Dover on Friday. He said the mask policy follows CDC recommendations and is meant to protect other children from the virus and vulnerable individuals those children may live with.

Christina Dietrich, organizer of the M.O.M. rally, is from Middletown and has four children in the Appoquinimink School District, but pulled them out to homeschool them last year until a vaccine was rolled out. Ms. Dietrich works as a caretaker for an elderly woman and did not want to risk bringing the virus home to her patient.

“Once everyone was vaccinated, I let the kids go back to normal and we thought we would have a chance for a normal school year,” Ms. Dietrich said. “I’m as concerned about (COVID-19) as I am of the long-term effects of influenza or a bad bout of any respiratory disease. I haven’t seen clear evidence that it’s more prominent from COVID.”

Several parents argued that COVID-19 is no more serious than the flu for kids and organizers questioned why children must wear masks to school when they are the “least vulnerable” population.

“What I’m worried about is that they can’t understand their teachers and their teachers can’t understand them,” Ms. Dietrich said. “The easiest way to gauge (students’) comprehension is to look at all their faces, see if there’s any little mouths hanging open or questioning faces. You can’t understand people’s facial expressions with only half of their face.”

Molly Magarik, Cabinet Secretary for DHSS, accompanied Gov. Carney to answer the public’s questions. She said there are ways to minimize those developmental impacts.

“There’s things that parents can do and the interactions that kids are having out of school also matter,” she said. “We are concerned though that putting kids in a classroom without a mask is a direct health risk to them, both now and potentially in the future because we don’t fully understand the longterm effects of COVID-19.”

According to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, among 376 adolescents hospitalized during Jan. 1–March 31, 2021, who received a positive SARS-CoV-2 laboratory test result, 172 (45.7%) were analyzed separately because their primary reason for admission might not have been directly COVID-19–related. Among the 204 patients who were likely admitted primarily for COVID-19–related illness, 70.6% had one or more underlying medical conditions, the most common of which were obesity (35.8%), chronic lung disease, including asthma (30.9%), and neurologic disorders (14.2%); 31.4% of patients required ICU admission and 4.9% required invasive mechanical ventilation, but there were no associated deaths.

Throughout the entire pandemic, data analyzed from March 7, 2020 through Aug. 14, 2021, show that a total of 1,334 children ages 0-4 were hospitalized and 2,205 children ages 5-17 were hospitalized for COVID-19.

Parents questioned “where the flu went” last fall since there were significantly less cases than previous years. Ms. Magarik said flu transmission also decreased due to mask wearing, which elicited a small uproar from the crowd.

The AP reported in February that experts attributed the measures put in place to fend off the coronavirus like mask wearing, social distancing and virtual schooling, were a big factor in preventing a “twindemic” of flu and COVID-19. The AP said that according to the CDC, 2020 was the lowest flu season in 25 years of past records.

A study done in Mexico City and published by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health included a total of 295 patients with influenza and 133 with SARS-CoV2 infection. Comorbidities were frequent in both groups, but they were more common in patients with influenza (96.6 vs. 82.7%.) Overall, 6.4% percent of patients with influenza and 7.5% percent of patients with SARS-CoV2 infection died.

People also questioned Gov. Carney and Ms. Magarik on the effectiveness of mask wearing for kids. In a document released by M.O.M., organizers cite a study released by the CDC in May 2020 said, “Although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”

However, more recent data that cites multiple study samples from May 2021 says that mask wearing does reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

“Each analysis demonstrated that, following directives from organizational and political leadership for universal masking, new infections fell significantly,” the new report says.

Members from M.O.M. and others questioned the effectiveness of natural immunity from antibodies that previously infected individuals may have.

One woman said she believes reinfection is less among those with “natural immunity” than those who got vaccinated. However, in August, the CDC released a study from Kentucky that shows among people who were previously infected with SAR-CoV-2, unvaccinated individuals are more than twice as likely to be reinfected with COVID-19 than those who were fully vaccinated after initially contracting the virus, indicating “that COVID-19 vaccines offer better protection than natural immunity alone and that vaccines, even after prior infection, help prevent reinfections.”

“The average antibody test that you’re going to get at a LabCorp may not be able to say whether you have the antibodies that are going to prevent you from getting reinfected,” Ms. Magarik said. “Right now just someone saying they have antibodies to Sars-CoV-2 would not necessarily indicate that you are safe from getting reinfected.”

There were also several comments regarding vaccine mandates and the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine. Recent vaccine mandates from healthcare systems like ChristianaCare and Nemours Children’s Health received criticism among the crowd as well, but Ms. Magarik clarified that the DHSS and the state do not have vaccine mandates in place for hospitals. All mandates in health care systems are private decisions.

Several people then claimed the hospitals were coerced into those decisions.

Ms. Magarik noted that while there are treatments for individuals that become infected with COVID-19 such as monoclonal treatments, which use laboratory-made antibody proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off harmful antigens such as viruses, their main goal is to prevent infections in the first place.

Gov. Carney said that the only “real solution” is to get more people vaccinated in Delaware.