gov. Kathy Hochul dropping the mask mandates for businesses makes her continued refusal to do the same for schoolchildren all the more outrageous.
Especially when she made a big deal of consulting with teacher unions and other groups the unions largely control before announcing she’s not budging.
The other blue-state govs who’ve had the common sense to announce expiration dates for school-mask mandates must not fear their teacher unions quite as much.
Nope: Hochul insists on making New York children suffer for no good reason† She hides behind Centers for Disease Control recommendations on school masking (which is also dictated by teacher unions via the Biden White House) but ignores the similar CDC cautions on adult masking.
She claims she needs more data, when all the data show kids are safe and masks make no appreciable difference.
She says she’ll reconsider the first week of March, hoping that more kids, particularly between the ages of 5 to 11, get vaccinated. (About 38% have at least received one dose.) But unvaxxed kids have tiny case, hospitalization and fatality rates, lower than fully vaxxed adults.
Why continue this maskuerade? The gov doesn’t have the guts to cross the teacher unions, period.
Either way, she’s putting the children’s interests dead last. despicable.