McMaster and masks: Heath, safety of children must be the priority
In a public school elementary classroom of 24 youngsters, imagine that 20 are from families where parents and siblings over 12 have received the COVID-19 vaccine and four of the pupils’ family members are unvaccinated.
Let’s also imagine the unvaccinated parents don’t want their kids to wear masks at school. In that scenario, the unvaccinated parents will have put at some health risk 20 children by in effect usurping the wishes – and the authority ‑ of all the vaccinated parents.
Absolutely, it would not be right for that to happen and we most certainly hope it does not. The scenario illustrates how Gov. Henry McMaster and many legislators – along with a number of not elected folks ‑ are out of touch with reality on wearing protective face coverings as COVID-19 cases again soar.
RESPONSIBILITY
As the S.C. General Assembly finished the budget two months ago in Columbia, state representatives and senators made a big blunder. Rep. Stewart Jones, R-Laurens, “inserted a pair of amendments in the budget to stop K-12 schools and colleges and universities from mandating that students, teachers and staff wear face masks,” quoting a detailed report by The State’s reporters Joseph Bustos and Zak Koeske.
At the time, COVID-19 cases were at a low point, the vaccines were available, and it looked as though life was beginning to return to a new normal. McMaster had issued an executive order prohibiting mandates on masks – not protective face coverings themselves – which follows McMaster’s wrongheaded idea that “Mandating masks is not the answer. Personal responsibility is the answer.”
How’s that working, governor? Not very well when South Carolina has a low rate of vaccinations, and unvaccinated people refuse to wear masks because, they selfishly claim, that’s their right and “never mind, y’all, I’ve never gotten flu shots … “
AIRPORT MASKS
Unvaccinated folks refusing to mask up in the grocery store is both foolish and selfish. Personal liberties do not extend to putting others at risk.
Horry County Police Department officers not wearing masks at Myrtle Beach International Airport is a violation of federal regulations. The scofflaw officers should mask up and remind passengers to do so.
When Jones inserted his amendments in the education budget, Rep. John King of York said on the House floor that the K-12 amendment was bad policy. “What if something serious happened? … this will be a law for a year. This is serious; we’re talking about lives.”
And Rep. Justin Bamberg spoke directly about “a strain of COVID in the UK right now [in June] that is decimating young people. What happens if that comes over here and hits our young people?” Bamberg and King pointed out local governments and school districts should have the ability to impose mask mandates.
The Jones provisos are the worst kind of legislative action. It’s unfortunate that more representatives did not challenge Jones, and that senators did not remove the amendments.
‘FOOLISH POLITICS’
Now, as the delta variant rages, the Jones provisos face legal challenges. Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin announced a city school mask mandate. “We’ve got to put foolish politics behind us and … save lives.”
McMaster, in a solo (no public health officials) press conference, continued his no mask mandate mantra. He is missing the fact that school masks protect many more children than adults. Children under 12 do contract the virus and sometimes are quite ill: American Academy of Pediatrics.
Wearing masks, even requiring them, does not equate to “shutting our state down, closing schools,” as McMaster said. In a pandemic, as in a wildfire, facts change. If the wind changes, firefighters adjust their attack.
McMaster’s priority should be public health, especially that of schoolchildren, and the common good. Mask mandates may not be the answer; neither is reliance on personal responsibility.