The Murphy mask challenge
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy says in light of sharp declines in the omicron-driven COVID-19 wave, his state’s school mask mandate will be lifted early next month, enabling a significant share of 1.4 million public school students across the Hudson to have their faces seen (not necessarily all, as individual districts will still be free to keep their rules in place).
New York State and City should take this opportunity to reassess their own school mask mandates. We think there’s scant evidence that they are still a public health necessity, and ample evidence that kids’ learning and social-emotional health will be enhanced by lifting the requirement soon, assuming the virus stays largely at bay.
Start with these facts: Case and hospitalization numbers have fallen down near the bottom of the mountain from their peak; the omicron variant has been far less severe than earlier iterations for the vaccinated and boosted; and cases of serious COVID disease or death have from the start been very rare in children. Meanwhile, research shows that masking hampers children’s ability to decode facial expressions and hinders their ability to understand others — problems to which we should be especially sensitive in light of a widely recognized mental health crisis among youngsters.
If the public health benefits were clear, we’d have no problem backing universal masking in schools. But given the virus that presents itself today, with New York City teachers all vaccinated and students increasingly having had their shots, there’s weak justification for keeping a rigid rule in place.
While as a general rule masks work, there’s a paucity of evidence that school mask mandates are very effective. A comparison of British schools that used masks and those that did not found the variation in transmission-rate declines to be statistically insignificant. Students in two neighboring counties in Tennessee — one with a mandate and one with about a quarter of students opting out — had essentially the same positivity rates over time. Meanwhile, the CDC’s overselling of a flawed Arizona study claiming that schools without mandates are far likelier to have COVID outbreaks has been roundly criticized as misleading.
If a student or teacher feels the need to mask up to protect themselves or a loved one at home, that should be their right. But the burden of proof is on Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams to explain now why everyone in schools must continue to mask.