Philadelphia Schools Absurdly Mandating Masks For ‘First 10 Days’ Of School Year

Among all the ridiculous COVID policies that have persisted into 2022, school masking might be the most indefensible.

On top of the mountains of evidence that have accumulated over the past several years confirming that masks are useless, the data to support masking kids is even worse.

There have been studies conducted in multiple countries concluding that masks do not work in schools, and endless data comparisons showing school districts without mandates had similar or better COVID case rates to those with mandates.

But that doesn't seem to matter to school administrators.

Just a few weeks ago, a number of districts across the country announced new masking policies:

Despite the conclusive data against forcibly masking kids, that hasn't stopped yet another school district from imposing harmful, ineffective mandates.

But this one has a new, even more confusing twist.

The Philadelphia school district has mandated masks for the first 10 days of the school year, although for some bewildering reason, pre-k students will be forced to mask the entire year:

"For the first 10 days of the new school year – from August 29 through September 9 – all students and staff will be required to wear masks while in school, regardless of the COVID-19 Community Level," the announcement reads. "Students and staff at PreK Head Start programs are still required to wear masks at all times, regardless of the Community Level."

That's correct, on top of the ludicrous 10 day mandate, 3 to 4-year olds will be forced to mask at all times, based on nothing.

It gets even dumber.

Any time the area is in the CDC's entirely arbitrary "high transmission" level, mask mandates will be imposed automatically:

"The letter states that when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 community transmission level is high, students and staff will be required to wear masks in schools. When the level is medium, masking is 'strongly recommended.'"

On top of these horrifying policies, students that have been exposed to COVID can remain in school, but only if they're masked for 10 days.

Forcing kids to wear useless facial decorations for 10 days to assuage the fears of terrified adults is a perfect example of liberal COVID policies.

Decisions like this in far left areas across the country indicate that these administrators intend to keep children masked indefinitely.

If two and a half years of masking being completely ineffective isn't enough for them to stop, when will it ever end? Their incessant political virtue signaling is going to needlessly harm children, all to avoid admitting they were wrong.

On top of the local officials, the CDC and other "public health experts" share significant blame for this offensive policy.

They could have acknowledged their mistakes and moved on from the pandemic long before this, but instead chose to double down and continue their nonsensical recommendations. So instead of parents and children being able to look forward to a maskless school year, they'll be forced to endure this pointless ritual to protect the egos of incompetent bureaucrats.

What these districts are doing to children will have tremendous, long lasting harms, with quite literally zero benefit to show for it.

In settings where educators are supposed to protect and educate children, they're purposefully hurting them instead.