Teachers unions maintain silence as mask mandates discarded
March 3 | Posted by mrossol | Big Govt, Coronavirus, MandatesPosted by Moshe Tokayer, Mar 01, 2022, 2:05 PM
American Federation of Teachers President: ‘Real question: How do we make sure it doesn’t feel like it’s based upon politics?’
On February 25, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidelines for wearing masks. Past guidelines were based on virus transmission rates. Masks were recommended for people living in counties considered to have “substantial” or “high” transmission.
The new guidelines recommend masks based on COVID hospitalizations. People residing in counties categorized at “low” or “medium” risk levels are advised that they do not need face coverings indoors. According to the new guidelines, nearly 70 percent of Americans would not be required to put on masks, even indoors.
Usually, guidelines are changed when the situation changes. If guidelines are based on transmission rates, then a lower rate would be good reason to loosen mask guidelines.
The CDC did not do that. Transmission rates have not changed. If we were to look only at transmission rates, the CDC would not have been able to relax mask requirements.
The CDC wanted to ease those requirements. So, they changed the criteria. Based on the new criteria, they changed the guidelines.
Why did the CDC want to relax mask requirements?
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, “We wanna give people a break from things like mask wearing when our levels are low …”.
This doesn’t make much sense since according to the old guidelines, 90% of all U.S. counties would still be required to wear masks. What low levels is she referring to? She’s definitely not referring to virus transmission rates.
Walensky continued that the CDC would, “… have the ability to reach for them again (mask wearing), should things get worse in the future.”
In other words, when the powers that be decide it’s time to reinstitute mask wearing, the CDC can simply revert to the old criteria.
Since it is not science that caused the CDC to relax their mask guidelines, maybe it’s politics. This is, after all, an election year. The midterms are several months away and the administration is not very popular. Could it have anything to do with the State of the Union address today?
Whatever the real reason may be, on the heels of the CDC announcement, California, Oregon and Washington have rolled back mask mandates for schools. As of today (March 1), students will no longer be required to wear masks at school.
Teachers’ unions including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have been mostly silent. There has been no pushback.
Yet on February 8th, just a few weeks before the CDC’s announcement, AFT President Randi Weingarten suggested on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that to end masking in schools the spread of COVID-19 needs to be “low enough” so that there’s no transmission in schools.
“We believe in an off ramp,” Weingarten said. “The real question becomes, how do we make sure … that it doesn’t feel like it’s based upon politics. It feels like it’s based upon making sure that there is no transmission in school.”
Perhaps Weingarten is silent because the CDC decision, notwithstanding her own statement, is based on politics. It’s definitely not based on science.
https://aflds.org/news/post/teachers-unions-maintain-silence-as-mask-mandates-rolled-back/
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