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Teju Wu’s air is in conflict. At the onset of the epidemic, the mask quickly became a symbol of political affiliation in the country, and then under the leadership of Donald Trump it was honorable to cover the face as much as possible.
One year later, as the school year draws to a close, this material is again particularly sensitive.
“It’s up to the parents to decide,” Florida Republican Gov. Ron Desantis said Tuesday, banning his students from wearing masks to schools. We will do everything we can to uphold the rights of parents, he said.
Several school districts have announced they intend to challenge the governor’s order. In response, Ron Desantis threatened to cut funding for the rebel schools, or suspend the salaries of the school officials involved in these decisions.
Democrats President Joe Biden said Tuesday that “principals who want to impose a mask on” a governor “have the power to” you can not do it, I see it as completely counter-intuitive and even hypocritical. “
Excessive virus circulation
In May, vaccinated Americans were able to say goodbye to the mask, and health officials felt it could be safely removed. In early July, the country’s leading public health agency (CDC) promised that the recommendation would apply to vaccinated children in classes at the beginning of the school year.
It was calculated without the most contagious delta variation. There is not enough vaccine protection to prevent a strong outbreak of the disease: only half of the American population is fully vaccinated. And children under the age of 12 are ineligible.
By the end of July, in the areas where the virus spreads, the mask is recommended indoors for those who have been vaccinated. According to the CDC classification, it is 90% of the country today.
Health officials are highlighting preliminary data showing that vaccinated individuals, if infected, may transmit the virus more with Delta than other types.
In the process, many companies are revising their rules. Walmart, the largest company in the United States, reintroduced the wearing of masks to all its employees two and a half months after the vaccinated employees.
Put politics aside
The epidemic is currently raging in the southeastern part of the country. Precisely states are among the least vaccinated states.
However, “people who have not been vaccinated are less likely to wear the mask,” Northwell Health public health expert Eric Cio-Pena told AFP. “We have no purchases from the people we want to buy from.”
In Arkansas, Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson imposed the wearing of a mask during an epidemic this winter. But as the cases dwindled, he eventually removed it and, under pressure from the more conservative local government, signed into law a law prohibiting the re-imposition of such an obligation in the future.
“Looking back, I want it not to become law,” he told a news conference in early August. On Monday, he saw on Twitter that a large number of people were admitted to the hospital, pointing out that there were only eight beds in the government intensive care unit.
In Texas, as in Florida, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has banned schools from requiring masks. Again, several school districts announced they would do it anyway. Same scene in Arizona.
Conversely, in New York or Illinois, even in democratic states, all school students are required to wear a mask.
“We are behaving as if we are two countries,” he told AFP Nahid Patelia, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Research at Boston University. “But the sad thing is that it’s not because what happens in the south of the country affects the north.”
When unvaccinated children end up in the same classroom and say, “If you take the policy (situation), the way to make it safe is to vaccinate everyone around you, and it’s important to wear a mask.”
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