Breathing through a mask isn’t comfortable. For me, a few minutes is enough, but I comply when shopping. I get that parents don’t want to subject their kids to the discomfort, all day, every day, for an entire school year. But they have to.
Republican politicians portray masks as an assault on “freedom.” Medical experts say they’re necessary to save lives and end the pandemic. Most loss of life now is in states run by Republican elected officials sympathetic to anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers.
Teachers are fleeing those states.
“Schools reopening are causing teachers to quit or retire because there has been a surge of COVID-19 outbreaks due to some states banning mask mandates,” The Hill reported on Monday, October 4, 2021 (read story here).
“Florida teacher vacancies increased 67 percent in August 2021 compared with August 2020,” The Hill said. “Teachers like Amanda Tower, an elementary school teacher who recently resigned, wanted her district to have more restrictive COVID-19 safety protocols because the classrooms were tightly packed and poorly ventilated, students were not required to wear masks and often showed up sick, and teachers were receiving significant pushback from science deniers.”
It isn’t just the risk of getting sick, so getting vaccinated doesn’t solve the problem. She’s fed up with taking crap from anti-masker parents and agitators. There’s no vaccine against that.
I won’t debate the efficacy of masks here. It’s not debatable, and this blog doesn’t cater to misinformation or stupidity. One thing that needs repeating, though, is that while masks offer wearers some protection, their primary function is to protect others from the mask wearer. That’s why refusing to wear a mask isn’t a matter of personal choice, but a selfish act that endangers others. It’s morally equivalent to speeding in a residential neighborhood, or passing a stopped school bus letting off children.
States that have enacted bans on mask requirements are paying a steep price. Their residents are dying, their hospitals are rationing life-saving care, their kids are getting sick in large numbers. It’s time to call this behavior stupid and irresponsible, because it is. And voting for these politicians isn’t an act of responsible citizenship.
In some states, a few teachers are quitting or being fired for not complying with vaccine mandates, but their numbers are small, and they probably could get jobs in states that don’t allow mandates. There are vacancies there. They might like the politics more, too. They’ll be among like-minded morons.
The pandemic is a real thing. Over 700,000 Americans are dead, and they’re not all old people, the casualties include young adults and some children. Masks are still needed even by vaccinated people, because they can spread the virus. The only way we’ll lick this thing, and return to normal living, is by strangling its ability to jump from person to person. Vaccines and masks are both required to do that. It’s time for deniers to stop being stupid and get with the program.
Meanwhile, when teachers who’ve had enough of stupidity vote with their feet, I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t work under those conditions, either.
Related story: Teresa Sperry, 10, of Suffolk, Virginia, went to school two weeks ago. Five days later, she was dead. Her mother says, “Our daughter was perfectly healthy, and would have continued to be here, if people would have stopped sending their sick kids to school.” Read story here. This blog’s argument is simple: Parents don’t have a right to risk the lives of other people’s kids, and that’s what they’re doing when they oppose mask mandates, send their kids to school without masks, or put sick kids on the school bus.