Opinion: Oregon should lift mask mandate on students

Laura Schwarz

Schwarz is the parent of two elementary school children in Lake Oswego public schools.

Since returning to in-person instruction last year, Oregon’s students have been required to wear masks at school, indoors and outside, and all day long, except for a hurried lunch. After all we have learned about the coronavirus, Oregon leaders still haven’t learned how to calculate risk.

Public health experts have consistently said – and both national data and Oregon’s COVID statistics bear this out – the risk of hospitalization or death to children – even those who are unvaccinated and unmasked – is much smaller than the risk to adults. Yet our community has enacted some of its severest restrictions on children. As we look to regain some normalcy, Gov. Kate Brown and Oregon policy makers should adjust to the realities of 2022. It’s time for the governor to rescind the mask mandate for students and leave the decision on whether to mask to local school boards and students’ own parents to weigh their risk.

In Oregon, the hospitalization rate for elementary school-aged kids between 5-11 is 0.6 per 100,000, for the week of Jan. 16, according to OHA’s most recent pediatric report. This rate has never been above 2 in this age group and has been declining since early January, the site shows. It’s also unknown how many were hospitalized due to COVID versus hospitalized for other reasons but also test positive for COVID. Regardless, the exceedingly low rate of hospitalization even amid the highly-infectious but milder omicron variant warrants asking why we still have a mask mandate in place.

We also have many more tools to keep those risks even lower. We now have vaccines for everyone 5 and up; schools have upgraded their ventilation systems; children can mask if they choose with higher quality masks that provide strong personal protection; and staff follow excellent cleaning protocols.

But even beyond the low health risks, there are other reasons mandatory masks aren’t necessary. Studies have shown mixed results on the protective effects of masking, and even a May 2021 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that student mask-wearing did not show a statistically significant COVID reduction compared to schools without a student mandate. Many public health experts are now saying that cloth masks are not effective in stopping transmission of the omicron variant. And there are potential harms to long-term masking. Early childhood is a critical time for children to learn essential language, social and emotional skills. Mask-wearing interferes with their ability to hear and learn how to pronounce words correctly and their ability to assess emotion from people’s facial expressions. If there is no demonstrable real-world benefit to mandatory masking, why continue to subject young children to these potential drawbacks? As the World Health Organization notes, the “potential impact of wearing a mask on learning and psychosocial development” should be a consideration in whether to require masks to be worn by children under 12.

I’ve heard people in our community, schools and Legislature say children are resilient. But what they mean is that kids don’t have the language to express all the ways in which we’ve hurt them with COVID restrictions. The Oregon Health Authority is now considering a permanent rule mandating masks with no clear off ramp, no stated goal to achieve that would cause this rule to be rescinded. This is scientifically and morally unjust. We must stand up for our children – they deserve normalcy now more than ever.

My kids are not allowed to breathe fresh air during physical education class even though we know risks of outdoor transmission are extremely low – even with omicron and even though the Oregon Health Authority dropped the outside mask mandate. My kindergartener is still trying to learn how to read and pronounce sounds through a masked face and from a masked teacher which is a difficult task for even the most eager of learners. My 4th grader says he can only get fresh air while going to the bathroom at school since there is no other place he can take his mask down without getting reprimanded. He gets shamed by his classmates when his mask accidentally slips below his nose and has been warned by his teacher that he’ll be sent to the principal’s office for this small infraction. And he’s been told that he is risking his own health and the health of his classmates, making him feel like he’s being accused of actively hurting himself, or worse, his friends. However well-meaning his teacher may be, her classroom, like many others, encourages a culture of fear.

A continuing mask mandate for school kids is a sign of failure – the failure as a society to adapt to a less harmful virus. Kids have only one childhood – let them live it.