And the fearful shall control the rest of us

The American people have become just plain tired of all of the COVID-19 restrictions, and even Democratic Governors of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware have ended their statewide mask mandates for the schools. Naturally, the petit dictators in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia have not only kept their mask mandates, but even strengthened it:

    Philadelphia students and staff continue to be required to wear masks. On Monday, those rules became stricter — students and employees must now either wear a well-fitted mask (such as a N95, KN94, or KN95) or a three-ply disposable masks. Cloth masks on their own are no longer allowed across the Philadelphia School District.

As we have previously noted, many, and perhaps even most, men now wear beards, and the Centers for Disease Control issued a chart for which facial hair styles will and will not allow an N-95 mask to properly seal! Will Philadelphia now issue facial hair regulations based on the notion that the required masks won’t seal otherwise?

But in the school districts outside of Philadelphia, where local school boards have opted to end the mask mandates, the fearful have gone to court to force those schools to keep them in place:

    Judge orders Perkiomen Valley School District to continue masking to protect disabled students

    The decision is likely to be reviewed by other area school districts revisiting masking requirements as COVID-19 cases decline.

    by Maddie Hanna | Monday, February 7, 2022

    A federal judge on Monday ordered the Perkiomen Valley School District to keep masking in place, granting a preliminary injunction sought by parents of children with disabilities that put them at higher risk of serious complications from COVID-19.

    The decision effectively extends a prior order for masking during the school day that Judge Wendy Beetlestone had previously issued against the Montgomery County district, but without any end date.

    In her opinion, Beetlestone agreed with lawyers for the plaintiffs — three children with medical conditions ranging from asthma to chronic bronchitis and pneumonia, that in some cases require taking immunosuppressant drugs — that the children were at heightened risk of severe illness or death if they contracted the virus, and that “universal masking meaningfully reduces the transmission of COVID-19 in schools.” As a result, she said, optional masking prevents the students from “meaningfully accessing” in-person education, a valid claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

There’s more at the original, but if masks work, why wouldn’t such masks worn by the children with health issues protect them? Why must other people, hundreds of other people, be required to wear masks to protect these three children? Why must the whole school wear masks, rather than only the children and staff in the individual rooms in which the vulnerable students are seated?

Of course, the Americans with Disabilities Act doesn’t apply just to schools; it applies to almost every institution, public and private. Under the rationale of this decision, which does not set a precedent but can be used by other lawyers as evidence in other cases, any fearful Karen in any company can claim highten vulnerability to COVID-19 and try to get a court order requiring the company to maintain a mask mandate. A few thousand Karens across the country, and we could see federal judges basically ordering every workplace and every school and every business to maintain a mask mandate for months or even years. The American people will not stand for that!

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5 thoughts on “And the fearful shall control the rest of us

  1. When Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-VA), who won last year’s election in significant part due to the then-Governor Ralph Northam’s (D-VA) COVID-19 restrictions, relaxed them, the Karens went nuts:

    ‘A slap in the face’: uproar in Virginia as governor relaxes school mask rules

    by Melody Schreiber | Tuesday, February 8, 2022

    Emily Paterson was finally feeling able to relax. Her two sons were now fully vaccinated, and with mask policies in place at their school in northern Virginia she felt safe sending them every day, even as the Omicron variant surged.

    Then Virginia’s new governor, Glenn Youngkin, took office on 15 January of this year – and, with his second executive action, he made masks in schools optional.

    A Virginia judge has blocked Youngkin’s order for now, allowing school districts to continue to enforce mask mandates in schools.

    But the decision “immediately threw the whole state into an uproar”, Paterson said. “It felt really like a slap in the face. We felt really happy that this year wasn’t virtual, and that we could rely on our kids going back to school in person and being safe. So it was pretty shocking.”

    Virginia isn’t alone in attempting to roll back precautions against Covid, as Omicron cases begin to fall in parts of the US and public backlash continues against public health measures. Kansas stopped contact tracing after many of those contacted refused to participate, and a Florida’ health official has said it’s time to “unwind” the “testing psychology”.

    In other places, however, the premature abandonment of restrictions is being met with its own opposition.

    The Fairfax county school board, which is Paterson’s home district and the largest in Virginia, quickly announced it would continue requiring masks for all students, and a week later Fairfax joined six other school districts in a lawsuit against the executive order. Parents in Chesapeake, Virginia, filed a separate lawsuit.

    Both suits argue that Virginia law requires schools to follow guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which recommends masks for everyone in schools with very rare exceptions.

    Parents of children with disabilities filed another lawsuit last week against the order, arguing that it makes schools an unsafe learning environment; yet another lawsuit, filed by parents against Loudoun county’s continued mandate, would support the governor’s order, however.

    There’s more at the original, but one thing is obvious: if some parents believe that masks work against the spread of the Xi Omicron variant, why don’t they believe that their own kids wearing masks will protect them; why do some insist that other people’s kids have to wear them, too? Why does Emily Paterson believe that her children, described as fully vaccinated, and able to wear face masks themselves, believe that the only way to make them safe is for other people to wear masks as well?

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