On February 25, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) updated their masking guidelines, relaxing mask mandates for 70 percent of the country where people are at "low" or "medium" risk of contracting COVID. This includes school children in those counties. Two days later, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) announced that school children in New York State might finally have some freedom from mask mandates. Mayor Eric Adams (D), however, has squashed that sense of freedom for three- and four-year-olds in New York City, the country's largest school district.
Buried in a Twitter thread from Friday, Mayor Adams made the announcement. This comes even as he himself acknowledged in the thread that "Schools have remained among the safest places in the city throughout this pandemic, with record low numbers of infections."
Masks will continue to be required for all settings with children under 5 years of age, including programs contracted by the New York City Department of Education with 3- and 4-year-old children as well as 3K and 4K classrooms in district schools.
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) March 4, 2022
The decision may be based on how the vaccine against COVID is not yet available for children under five-years-old.
As a parent of a 4yo this is deeply disappointing. Requiring young children to be masked "in all settings" while nobody else needs to, is more harmful to the children than COVID at this point.
— Dominic Gagliardi (@domdadomdom) March 4, 2022
But lots of kids over 5 aren’t vaccinated. How does this make sense??
— MORE-UFT (@MOREcaucusUFT) March 4, 2022
Five year olds will be the last people with masks on. We are a deeply unserious people.
— Gert B. Frobe (@ThumblessGrasp) March 5, 2022
Given what we know about COVID, I and many parents I speak with are having difficulty understanding this mandate, especially in light of the childhood learning & social development issues that are increasingly coming to light. Would you please explain the basis for this decision?
— Erik Johnson ?? (@RedProdigal) March 4, 2022
The mayor's retweets since then have involved quite the amount of bragging when it comes to emphasizing that students in kindergarten through 12th grade no longer have to wear masks.
Face coverings will be optional on @NYCschools grounds for students in kindergarten through grade 12 beginning Monday, March 7, 2022.
— City of New York (@nycgov) March 6, 2022
Learn more from @NYCSchools: https://t.co/4jFV4uE5sc
As of March 7: NYC to suspend Key to NYC program & make masks optional in NYC public schools for K-12 students: https://t.co/dW7oF1sKlM
— NYCEM - Notify NYC (@NotifyNYC) March 5, 2022
This announcement from the mayor comes after many had high hopes he would be an improvement over former Mayor Bill de Blasio, also a Democrat, who was particularly strict with mask mandates and vaccine passports.
As I covered in November, shortly after Adams was elected, there was even some hope that he would relax mask mandates for school children, based on comments made during his appearance on CNN's "State of the Union."
Additionally, today we're announcing a new color coded system for our current #COVID19 alert level. As of today, we're at a low-alert level. Follow @NYCHealthy for more information: https://t.co/FZOp3HCOWz
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) March 4, 2022
It's worth noting that young children are among the lowest risk group for contracting a serious case of COVID. Further, the CDC considers New York County to be at "low" risk, which Adams himself acknowledged as well. As I also wrote about last November, the United States was one of seven western nations at the time that still had mask mandates in place for school children. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also been consistent in its recommendations that children under 5 do not have to mask up. Further, masks for young children may harm their development.