Right Under Our Noses [Authors’ Note: The following article was written prior to the Jan. 25 removal of Iowa schools’ ability to enforce mask mandates. Regardless, masks should still be worn indoors to protect oneself and others from COVID-19. Considering the Omicron variant’s high infection rate, school mask mandates could not have been struck down at a worse time.]
M
ask mandate compliance at Kennedy is weathering away. Masks slip below noses, chins and are sometimes taken off completely. Students have grown tired of the school mask mandate, in place since Sept. 15, and choose to rebel against it. An exemption form makes matters worse. Although the form is intended to be used by those who have genuine difficulties wearing masks, any student, with a signature from a licensed health care provider, can fill out the form and turn it in to the main office, dodging the mandate. Proof of vaccination is not required to get an exemption. This loophole hasn’t gone unnoticed. In just about every class, you can find a student without their mask. With COVID-19 infection rates at their highest ever worldwide, why are we dropping our standards? A common misconception follows this line of thinking: Wearing a mask should be optional now. Vaccines are widely available for free, and once someone is vaccinated, they cannot catch COVID-19, so they cannot spread it either. Therefore, the mask is pointless, and they can go about their day as usual. This theory presents an ideal world, where vaccines are perfect. Unfortunately, we do not
03
live in that ideal world, so a school mask mandate has to make up for some shortcomings. COVID-19 vaccines are effective at reducing the chance of catching the disease. They are even more effective at reducing hospitalizations, but they do not block COVID-19 entirely. Once a vaccinated person is infected, even if they are asymptomatic, they can spread the disease too. Even if vaccines were perfect, their mass availability hasn’t led to mass adoption. As of Jan. 4, only 59% of Iowans are fully vaccinated. By allowing people to choose whether or not they wear a mask, some unvaccinated people will choose to go mask-free. Another misunderstanding is that masks should not be required because we are not responsible for protecting people from themselves. In the United States, people are allowed to believe what they wish, to make poor choices, to risk their own lives without restriction, and opponents of the mask mandate argue this should extend to masks as well. But that is not our situation. Masks are not self-protection devices. Masks protect everyone around you. “We found objectively that masks are crit-
