As a mother that has 3 children in the NEISD school system, a Christian, and someone that has a degree in Biochemistry and a former investigator under contract and trained by the FDA, I feel like I have a unique viewpoint on why we should require masks in our teachers and children. At the very least, even if we do not require masks, there needs to be a complete overhaul of health and safety practices in our schools to prevent infections. I am unable to attend on Thursday and I know that this is long but I believe each point in it is valid and needs to be addressed and one of the problems with the people that are for mask freedom is that they are not reading the scientific data and studies thoroughly.
One of my girls goes to Nimitz STEM Academy. The actual STEM teachers are all masking and almost all the kids. It is telling that the teachers most familiar with science and technology choose to mask and make it not an issue. If all of San Antonio were as educated and familiar with science, then it might be acceptable to have such an idealistic policy of allowing people to choose to protect themselves and others.
One of my girls attends Bradley Middle School. If you look around the school, a large number of children and teachers are masked, but a smaller, but very significant number of school personnel and student were not. If it was simply a matter of not wearing a mask that would be one thing, but they are not keeping their distance from other people and they are not practicing any sort of preventative practices. They are touching everything and everyone in sight after touching their faces and rubbing their eyes. School counselors are not wearing masks in areas where students and parents and other personnel have to also sit and work. These areas are not being cleaned and sanitized before other people need to use them. Numerous studies have been done on the viability of viruses. On porous surfaces, studies report inability to detect viable virus within minutes to hours; on non-porous surfaces, viable virus can be detected for days to weeks. Also, When a person with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 has been indoors, virus can remain suspended in the air for minutes to hours. Wearing masks consistently and correctly can substantially reduce the amount of virus indoors, including the amount of virus that lands on surfaces. Also, the hard fact is that there are many 10 and 11 year olds at the middle school that cannot yet be vaccinated.
None of the children at the elementary schools can receive the vaccine. It seems criminal to put them in school with no distancing and no masks. I decided to homeschool my 10-year old because at Thousand Oaks elementary, the desks were placed grouped in 5s with all children facing each other just the narrow width of two desks apart. If one were to plan to spread the disease, the only better plan would be to have hug and kiss before seating themselves. This is an excellent set up for learning but during this pandemic there needs to be prophylactics to protect the learners.
Masks are their only protection, and when only one mask is used by the unvaccinated person, the protection offered is much lower than when both are masked. If a poor mask is worn by an unvaccinated person, then the protection is pretty minimal. With the quality of the mask increasing, so does the protection. When the other person is also wearing a mask, the protection increases by orders of magnitude. There is an argument that the virus is small so that it goes right through most masks, but what that argument is missing is that most of the time the virus is suspended in a droplet that will be blocked by the mask. In addition to the masks preventing Covid infections, it is even more effective in preventing other infections, especially bacterial pathogens, like Strep throat and other respiratory illnesses. RSV is growing along with the Delta variant and it is even more dangerous to babies and young children. In fact, during the last year and a half, two flu viruses have become extinct which had never happened before in written history.
Schools in Georgia have tried to make the masks voluntary and most individuals were masked and vaccinated. Despite this, counties in Georgia are having to shut down schools completely except virtually because less than a week after opening in the Ware County School System 679 children were quarantined and 167 students and teachers tested positive. Not learning from this exact thing happening a week ago in another state makes no sense, especially when 4 Texas school districts have already shut down due to Covid outbreaks.
I would just like to remind the board that people are infections weeks before symptoms. Also, according to current data, the delta variant of this virus, which is what is mostly what is being seen currently, is at least as twice as contagious and results in an even more severe illness. It is also infecting and hospitalizing more younger individuals. Covid deaths in the US according to CDC data which is not up to date include 87 children under 1 year of age, 44 children ages 1-4, 121 children 5 to 14, and 1062 people 15 to 24. It has taken 354 children up to age 17 so far and the number is growing faster all the time. And these numbers do not even include the children that have become sick, been hospitalized, or simply have permanent damage of some sort of another, which also happens frequently. My personal belief is that not one child's life is worth poor safety practices during education. Even if your number is bigger than that, I would hope it is small.
This is not fear mongering but a temporary response to an emergency situation. Those of us that are advocating masks to protect our children are not asking for permanently forcing everyone under the sun to wear masks inside and out whenever they are around anyone else. If everyone had isolated and masked and used aseptic technique the first two weeks after Spring Break March of 2020, there would be no more Covid 19 and certainly no Delta variant. It is this resistance to not wanting to change anything for even two weeks that has allowed this to spread and catering to the group of people that has caused this in the first place is not going to help contain this now.
I know that the Governor's office is threating a fine for not falling in line with his policy and I believe it is worth the financial cost to enforce masks. The articles from newspapers would imply that this fee is $1000. I will personally pay this myself if this is the case, and I believe that the school should place the lives of our children should outweigh even a much great cost. I also believe that using funds to allow for virtual schooling is worth the cost. I even offered to pay for a telepresence robot for my children and this idea was rejected. It would cost nothing for the school and would not require extra teachers to use. Refusing to allow this makes no sense other than to force my children into the risk area.
I know it is not feasible to keep every child 6 ft apart in every NEISD school, however, I do believe it is possible to keep the masked children and masked teachers 6 ft away from all unmasked individuals. If you really believe it is the right of young children to decide whether or not to mask, you should believe in the rights of other young children to choose safer practices. Another possibility is to group the two separately. They can choose which group to join.
A person's freedoms don't have the right to infringe upon others freedom to be healthy and safe. This is a public health issue, beyond the individual, to keep the collective healthy. Not wearing a mask or having a vaccine affects other people. Yes, people should take personal responsibility, but children have not thoroughly learned this yet and they don't have the knowledge to make an education decision either.
The school boards second goal reads "NEISD will maintain safe, supportive, and equitable environments for our students." The last goal reads, "NEISD will foster a culture of health and wellness among our students, staff, and community."
In closing, the regrets for forcing masks and seeing nothing will be low. The regrets for allowing children to choose and having kids die will haunt you for life. For those deaths, the people who did not do what they can to prevent them are responsible.
Thank you for your time in reading this,
Kimberly Hughes
Studies on the Covid virus on surfaces:
- J. Biryukov, J. A. Boydston, R. A. Dunning, J. J. Yeager and e. al., “Increasing temperature and relative humidity accelerates inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 on surfaces,” mSphere, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. e00441-20, 2020.
- A. Chin, J. Chu, M. Perera, K. Hui, H. L. Yen, M. Chan, M. Peiris and L. Poon, “Stability of SARS-CoV-2 in different environmental conditions.,” Lancet Microbe, vol. 1, p. e10, 2020.
- A. Kratzel, S. Steiner, D. Todt, P. V’kovski, Y. Brueggemann, J. Steinmann, E. Steinmann, V. Thiel and S. Pfaender, “Temperature-dependent surface stability of SARS-CoV-2,” Journal of Infection, vol. 81, no. 3, pp. 452-482, 2020.
- Y. Liu, T. Li, Y. Deng, S. Liu, D. Zhang, H. Li, X. Wang, L. Jia, J. Han, Z. Bei and L. Li, “Stability of SARS-CoV-2 on environmental surfaces and in human excreta,” Journal of Hospital Infection, vol. 107, pp. 105-107, 2021.
- S. Riddell, S. Goldie, A. Hill, D. Eagles and T. W. Drew, “The effect of temperature on persistence of SARS-CoV-2 on common surfaces,” Virology Journal, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 1-7, 2020.
- N. van Doremalen, T. Bushmaker, D. H. Morris, M. G. Holbrook, A. Gamble, B. N. Williamson, A. Tamin, J. L. Harcourt, N. J. Thornburg, S. I. Gerber and J. O. Lloyd-Smith, “Aerosol and surface stability of SARS-CoV-2 as compared with SARS-CoV-1,” New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 382, no. 16, pp. 1564-1567, 2020.
Studies on transmission in the air and the use of masks:
- R. L. Corsi, J. A. Siegel and C. Chiang, “Particle resuspension during the use of vacuum cleaners on residential carpet,” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 232-238, 2008.
- R. M. Jones and L. M. Brosseau, “Aerosol transmission of infectious disease,” J Occup Environ Med., vol. 57, no. 5, pp. 501-508, 2015.
- S. Zheng, J. Zhang, J. Mou, W. Du, Y. Yu and L. Wang, “The influence of relative humidity and ground material on indoor walking-induced particle resuspension,” Journal of Environmental Science and Health, vol. 54, no. 10, p. 104, 2019.
- E. P. Vejerano and L. C. Marr, “Physico-chemical characteristics of evaporating respiratory fluid droplets.,” J. R. Soc. Interface , vol. 15, p. 20170939, 2018.
- L. M. Casanova, S. Jeon, W. A. Rutala, D. J. Weber and M. D. Sobsey, “Effects of air temperature and relative humidity on coronavirus survival on surfaces,” Appl Environ Microbiol, vol. 76, no. 9, pp. 2712-2717, 2010.
- J. T. Brooks, D. H. Beezhold, J. D. Noti, C. J. P, R. C. Derk, F. M. Blachere and W. G. Lindsley, “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 10 February 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7007e1.htm?s_cid=mm7007e1_w. [Accessed 12 February 2021].
