On Friday night, New York City Eric Adams (D) took to Twitter to tout a judge's decision to keep his mask mandate in place for children 2-4 years old. The decision was a stay from a previous order earlier on Friday that came from Judge Ralph Porzio, who, as NBC New York quoted him as saying, called Adams' order "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable."
Every decision we make is with our children’s health and safety in mind.
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) April 1, 2022
Children between 2 and 4 should continue to wear their masks in school and daycare come Monday.
"Every decision we make is with our children's health and safety in mind," the mayor's tweet claimed.
NBC New York also included warnings from Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan, while still emphasizing that hospitalizations and cases are on the decline:
"Cases are definitively rising and it's gotten our attention," [Vasan] said. "They will continue to rise over the next few weeks, and it's likely that over these weeks, we will move into a different level of overall risk across the city."
Vasan said he was "recommending" people wear masks in public, indoor settings.
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The more critical metrics -- hospitalizations and deaths -- remain on the decline, and officials have said they don't expect a new severe surge linked to BA.2. That said, the city is still erring on the side of caution.
Right now, the community COVID alert level citywide is low, under the new benchmark system Adams unveiled earlier this month. It doesn't get any lower. So far, the risk level hasn't changed since the school mandate lifted on March 7, which the mayor called a 'great sign' as he declared it time to 'peel back another layer
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While BA.2 does appear to be "inherently more transmissible" than the original omicron strain, the World Health Organization has said, experts say they don't expect it to trigger a major resurgence given high vaccination rates and so many people having been recently infected with the first omicron strain.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), New York City is still under a "low" risk of transmission for the virus.
Last month, after Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) finally rescinded the statewide mask mandate in New York State, Mayor Adams shortly after announced that while children older than 5-years old, in K-12, could go without masks, those younger had to remain wearing them.
A vaccine is not yet available for the group, though young children are among the least likely to contract a serious case of the Wuhan coronavirus. Children's deaths from the virus have also been overcounted, the CDC admitted. Further, masks are likely to harm children's developments; the CDC even quietly changed their standards for childhood development.
Last month, as Madeline reported, Moderna asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve their vaccine for children under 6-years old.
Wait a minute
— Alasdair Munro (@apsmunro) April 1, 2022
So the ONLY group actually *required* to wear masks are the youngest children, who are at most risk of harms to their social and language development, who are lowest risk of severe illness, and who the WHO specifically advised *against* masking?
I am speechless
And to think that last November, soon after Adams was elected, there was hope he would do away with the needless mask mandate for children, not extend it.