As more people are vaccinated and summer weather brings us out of doors, the social distancing and masking debate continues. Many states are loosening restrictions and most schools finally opened for in person learning in the late spring. In Atlanta, you can see people in restaurants and stores maskless! CDC’s Dr. Fauci recently told viewers on CNN that the risk of contracting covid outdoors is extremely low and has also conceded that vaccinated individuals do not need to wear a mask.

View CDC’s mask policy for vaccinated people

Citizen Free Press blog, Paul Rand vs Fauci on masks.

The masking of children and the closing of schools have been controversial topics over the last year. The Centers for Disease Control has stated on their website that children are far less susceptible to Covid, less apt to spread the infection, and generally have mild symptoms when infected. In spite of the science supporting these statements, the CDC has encouraged schools to remain closed right up until this spring. Those schools that resumed in person learning for the 2020-21 school year followed strict masking and sanitizing procedures. It does not appear that in person learning contributed significantly to increased infection rates in those communities. The teachers unions seemed to have played a major role in delaying schools resuming face to face learning, for reasons that seem to be more self- serving than scientific.

While adults across the country are unmasking and social-distance relaxing, it appears that children continue to be held to a higher standard. The CDC’s policy on summer camps and other organized children’s activities both in and out of doors requires that all children, and adults in charge of them, including those vaccinated, wear masks and social distance 3 feet out doors and 6 feet indoors and while eating. A New York Post opinion piece calls the CDC’s guidance cruel and irrational designed to trap kids in the pandemic forever.

View the CDC’s policies on summer camps

The new strains of Covid raging in Brazil and India have been detected in various places in the US. This is undoubtedly giving policy makers at all levels concern even as they are relaxing restrictions across the nation. These strains show evidence of being more contagious to children than the previous ones. While some of us demand our rights and freedoms, and others clamor for protection and caution, none of us is really sure what is coming next. Let us unite in asking our policy makers to be truthful and reasonable, our news sources to stick to the facts rather than spread fear and fan the fires of division. And we the people can choose to be kind and respectful of others choice to mask or not to mask!