O'side parents frustrated over mask mandates

The map of the U.S. on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Covid-19 transmission map showed a brilliant red encompassing the entire country, indicating a high rate of transmission, regardless of how region has dealt with mask mandates. The CDC’s site also shows a decrease in cases over the last 30 days and an increase in deaths during that same time.

New York, one of the 11 states with a mask mandate, had that status challenged on Jan. 24, when Nassau County Supreme Court Judge Thomas Rademaker ruled that the mandate could not continue until it was passed by the State Legislature.

The following day, however, Appellate Division Justice Robert Miller granted the state’s request to keep the mask mandate in place while Hochul’s administration files an appeal. A similar mandate was in effect from April 2020 to June 2021; this one was a response to the Omicron surge.

Parents in the Oceanside School District on both sides have been frustrated with the back and forth, especially with very short notice last Monday evening on whether masks would be required the next morning, since the decision from Rademaker came late in the night.

Many parents, including Tony Greco, said they saw their children come home from school as excited as they had seen them since the pandemic started. Greco has a son at Oceanside High School, and said his son beamed with happiness when he came home from school on Monday after the mask mandate was not enforced in the Oceanside School District because of the lack of an appeal from the state at that time.

“I can’t tell you how happy he was to hear that he didn’t have to wear a mask on Monday,” Greco told the Herald. “But to see the look on his face when he found out it lasted for only one day was really disheartening. They are now playing with the emotions of children and young adults.”

There are still many parents who credit mask wearing with keeping their children safe and giving them a chance to see their grandparents in a safer environment. Veronika Roy, the mother of a 12-year-old student in the district, said she is pleased with the mandate because it helps protect her 6-month-old baby at home. There was confusion whether districts could enforce the mandate last Tuesday between when Rademaker published his decision and when the state planned to file its appeal.

“The back and forth was especially concerning since kids in his school were ripping masks off some kids that day,” Roy said her son told her. Roy said masks were especially important to her family when she wore one to see her grandparents for New Year’s 2021. She had a slight cough and decided to don the mask out of an abundance of caution, and tested positive a few days later for the virus, but did not spread it to her parents. “I strongly believe that face masks work and prevent a lot of unnecessary illnesses,” Roy said.

Critics of the mask mandate point to the use of cloth masks, which are no longer recommended by the CDC. Between that and the fact that respirators like the N95 masks have yet to be tested for broad use among children, parents feel frustrated by the situation.

“I think it’s important for people to realize that it [protection by masks] is a spectrum,” Mount Sinai South Nassau Chief of Infectious Diseases and epidemiologist Dr. Aaron Glatt told the Herald on Friday. “It makes a big difference if one person or both people are wearing it and how far apart they are. In general, the cloth masks are not as good as surgical masks, which are not as good as the N95 or KN95, so you have to use your judgment and be smart about it.”

Glatt also said that there has not been as much research done on children-specific masks. He also said that kids often do not wear the masks correctly. “The smartest thing to do is not send their kids to school when they are sick.