new York parents of children under the age of five vehemently condemned the rules forcing their young to disguise themselves when the rest of the city is liberated from COVID-19 Limits.
On Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams announced that children in Big Apple public schools aged five and over will no longer be forced to wear a face covering as the city’s infection rate has dropped to 671 cases a day. This is a decrease of 11.6% compared to the previous week, with only 1.8% of all tests now positive.
The only exception will be children under the age of five, who are not currently eligible for the vaccine, and day care providers have also been ordered to apply face masks. This comes even though only 307 children between the ages of 0 and 4 have died from COVID across the United States since the start of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, according to the latest CDC data.
A New York mother, 38-year-old Daniela Jampel of Washington Heights in Manhattan, told that the new mask policy is in the face of common sense and will create a series of “mini-police states” and a culture of small tyrants ”. ‘
Daniela Jampel, pictured here with her family, called on parents in New York to contact Mayor Eric Adams to express outrage at demands that children under 5 continue to wear masks.
Jampel, who was outspoken about keeping schools open during the pandemic because of the lower threat the virus poses to children, said she learned of the mayor’s mandate for a pediatric mask earlier in the week.
“I was outraged, I was so disappointed, I was really confused about how the only place you have to disguise is in their Pre-K or Three-K day care classrooms, it doesn’t make sense,” she said.
Jumpel said it called into question Adams’ judgment after he was elected on the back of promises to be a more moderate Democrat mayor than his predecessor, Bill de Blasio.
“I thought we were getting a more moderate politician, someone with a more common sense and a pragmatic approach to the city. Someone who wanted to reopen the city, “she said. “Masking children under the age of five and no one else?” This is certainly not a politician who turns the page on COVID.
She said her three daughters, aged eight, four and six months, are used to wearing masks all the time and sometimes get nervous about not wearing them.
Angry mother Daniela Jampel says children do not remember the days when they did not wear masks at school. “We normalized something that is not normal”
“We have normalized something that is not normal,” she said. “My four-year-old has never been to school without a mask, she can’t imagine that.”
She said she felt very good about the risks her children would take if they did not wear a mask indoors because she did not believe they were effective.
“It doesn’t affect me at all,” said Jampel, a lawyer. “Children are at incredibly low risk. If you look at the data, an unvaccinated child between the ages of two and five is at least at risk, even a vaccinated adult.
A February study by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that children under the age of five accounted for 0.026 percent of Covid-19 deaths in the United States, with three states reporting no deaths in that age group.
The World Health Organization agrees with Jampel on mask mandates.
“In principle, children under the age of five should not be required to wear masks,” the World Health Group’s website said. “This advice is based on the safety and overall interest of the child and the ability to properly use a mask with minimal assistance.”
Jumpel saw this “ability to use a mask properly” first hand.
“They are not worn properly. They are constantly confused. They are under their chin, “she said. “My daughter is coming home and her mask is wet because she’s been licking all day. It’s disgusting. ‘
In her four-year-old city’s Three-K program, children and childcare workers must be disguised, except for 45 minutes during a nap.
Last year, she said she watched a video from a class’s birthday party where children sit around a table ready to eat a cake.
Jumpel with one of his daughters. She says face masks for children do more harm than good
“They sit around a small table, six to one table, sing ‘Happy Birthday’ and shout at each other,” she said. – This is ridiculous.
For her four-year-old’s birthday, Jumpel said, the girls did gymnastics with their masks.
“Then they went to another room and ate pizza without masks,” she said. – Where is the logic in this?
She said it has a lasting effect on the city’s culture.
“What we are doing is creating mini police states,” she said. “We create a class of petty tyrants and teach children that they are dirty.”
Jumpel is pictured speaking at a rally against the closure of schools in November 2020
When Mayor Adams announced that children under the age of five would still have to wear masks, Jampel took to Twitter to encourage mothers and fathers to unanimously reveal their outrage to city officials.
“I am clear from the mayor’s anti-science and anti-child policy, which requires children under the age of 5 in New York to continue to disguise themselves, as literally everyone else in the world can take off their masks,” she wrote, adding to the mayor’s press release. office so they can clarify their opinion.
Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin, a Republican running for governor of New York, said learning was difficult for children in disguise at school.
“This is violence against children,” Zeldin tweeted. “Many children under the age of 5 are still learning how to speak, and New York wants them to do so when the teacher can’t see the child’s face and the child can’t see the teacher’s face. These little kids can’t get that time back. This is a completely stupid policy.
Kristen Walsh, a 47-year-old pediatrician based in New Jersey, called on government officials to weigh the benefits of disguising the ticket against the shortcomings.
“I call it the Covid Exclusivity,” she said. “It simply came to our notice then. We need to make sure that the benefits of the intervention outweigh the harms.
She said studies show that children’s social and emotional development at this early stage of development is hampered by the inability to see the faces of their friends and the faces of their teachers.
“Omicron is a threat to young children along with seasonal illnesses that we deal with all the time,” Walsh said.
“We have no evidence that masking children between the ages of two and five slows down the spread of the community, where there is evidence that it protects them.”