The Delaware State News carried an article titled “IRSD parents, staff to be surveyed about masks,” authored by staff writer Glenn Rolfe (Dec. 4). The issue is important since there are, across the country, some local school boards with pro-mask mandate sentiments in those states with bans on mandates and, conversely, in other states, some local school boards with anti-mask sentiments in states with mask mandates. These are revolts in opposite directions.
Rolfe, perhaps wisely, just quoted what several people said and left it at that. Unfortunately, some quotes conveyed serious misinformation, such as, “They tell us to follow the science. Science is proving that masks do not work; vaccination doesn’t work” and “(Children and teachers) … are masked, … but the cases are still happening,” which is a misunderstanding of the mask strategy.
It is way beyond fair letter-to-the-editor space to try to explain all this, but I suggest that reading the following sources will help a lot (all searchable by title on the internet): an article on the National Geographic website, titled “What kids really think about masks, vaccines, and in-person school” (these were mostly in the 9-14-year-old range and about half just did not like the mask, but the other half understood why they needed it); the article, “Debunking common face mask misconceptions,” which says the truth is that masks do not cause dizziness, etc., is on the intermountainhealthcare.org website; and the article titled “Mask Mythbusters: Common Questions about Kids & Face Masks” is on the healthychildren.org website. To understand the politics and psychology behind the mask controversy, see the article “These are the parents most likely to oppose school mask mandates, poll finds” on the Forbes website. (Spoiler: The answer is the politics of the parents.)
I have been watching the pandemic data and the media reports from the beginning. The game is to reduce your risk of becoming a new case. Everyone — or at least as many as possible — needs to play all their “cards” all the time for maximum risk reduction. It is not a guarantee. It is a strategy. One statistic is that, right now, some 18% of new COVID-19 infections across the country are in the school-age range. It gets carried home, and it spreads from there. The delta variant of the virus is currently the worst, and the new omicron variant might be even more contagious. There are many serious, competent studies that show that masks do help reduce the risk. And currently, about 90% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated. Get the shots, and your chances of having a problem go down by a factor of at least 10.
Arthur E. Sowers
Harbeson
