I'm writing in opposition of the school mask mandate; this should be at the discretion of the school or furthermore - the parents. Same goes for the vaccine.
Please understand the vast diversity of our county and our health needs. In our community we have had a low amount of cases and even lower transmission rates. Our youngest, most impressionable children were not required to wear masks before the vaccine was available. Now that the vast majority of their teachers, parents, and community are vaccinated it makes even less sense to require them to wear masks as the rates have stayed very low in our community. The mandate makes inaccurate assumptions of data (ie rates rising in August are because students aren't wearing masks. Inaccurate as last year our community rates didn't increase more than others when we had no masks, and some schools are requiring masks already and seeing rates rise). Everyone should be able to have the freedom to decide what is best for their own children. We all have the data available and know the risks and how much they vary. We as parents and community members should have the right to choose.
Right now we are in a mental health state of emergency. The childirens hospital is overwhelmed with mental health needs accross the psychiatric departments as well as the medical units as well as at various times the emergency department. Over whelmed. We are NOT overwhelmed with covid cases. In fact, many of the mental health patients I have worked with that are "covid-positive" are completely asymptomatic. Kids are not hospitalized becauese of covid. They are defintiely being hospitalized because of suicide attempts, depression, fear, as well as drug-induced psychosis. As far as covid and masks are concerned there are zero peer reviewed studies showing kids are asymptomatic spreaders and ZERO peer reviewed studies that demonstrate the efficacy of any type of mask in terms of covid transmissibility. Think about that. Where is the science? Masks mandates make absolutely no sense. Mask should NOT be mandated.
Please opt out of the mask mandate and let each district decide on their own. I know there are two sides to this and we all have our own concerns and hesitations. I personally oppose a mask mandate and believe parents should decide what is best for their child- physically, mentally, and emotionally.
What concerns me is if Adams County stays in this mask mandate, the schools hands are tied. Which means my son’s preschool, where 2-6 year olds attend, will need to mask up. My 3 year old is simply trying to grasp potty training and how to listen to a teacher, let alone having the county reach into the schools and mandate that he must wear a mask while doing all of this. Especially a private school where we pay tuition. Let these schools decide on their own in collaboration with their parents.
Please opt out and put the control back where it belongs. Thank you!
Please opt out of Tri County Health Mandate. Parents should have the right to make their own health decisions on behalf of their children. There has been an state of emergency for Children's Hospital due to the incredibly high number of kids trying and committing suicide. This is a mental health crisis. The small amount of kids that have been able to get a mask exemption for health reasons are getting ostracized and isolated from their peers. This only adds to our mental health problems. Mask choice allows some to wear mask and others not, so kids are not being isolated for their choice.
I believe that the responsibility of a minor lies with the Parent. It is the parent’s responsibility to determine the risk and chose what is appropriate for the child, not the Adams County Board. For this reason, I strongly oppose a mask mandate implemented at a county level. I think that each school within the district should have the ability to adopt its own policy for masks based on the needs of that school. Parents can then make an educated decision for their children. I personally do not think masks provide additional protection for kids from a virus that has been proven to be less impactful on children. I worry about the long term affects masks will have on my kids and I do not want to subject them to wearing them all day. This is about choice. If parents are concerned and want to take extra precautions, I fully support that right to choose a school that has a mask mandate. Those of us against the mandate should also have the same right to choose. Thank you for your support.
I feel that parents of school children should have a choice of either wearing or not wearing a mask. Please OP OUT of Tri County health's regulations for mandatory mask wearing. This age group is the LEAST at risk for contacting the Covid 19 virus. World wide there is NO BENEFIT to children who either wear a mask or do not wear a mask. CDC's own experiment report, has shown there is no benefit for wearing a mask.
I am asking the County Commissioners to give a voice back to their constituents, the people who elected them to serve. The recent TCHD mask mandate is an overreach of power and an attempt to undermine our local government and its citizens. Let us be a county of integrity. Let us be a county of parental choice. Let us be a county where everyone feels they have a voice…not just the ones who fall on a certain side of the aisle. Have faith that your constituents are able to make the best health decisions for themselves and their families. I urge you to opt out of this mandate and release power of CHOICE back to the people.
I believe that it should be the school/childcare center and parents choice for their child to wear a mask or not. Forcing all students to do so when their is little data to show the efficacy of masks is unreasonable. What we do know, is that students who are forced to wear masks are unable to read the emotional and physical body cues that are worn by their peers and teachers. Hearing impaired students are adversely affected by this as well, further prohibiting their ability to interact with others. Making masks optional allows every family and student decide what is best for them on an individual level.
I see a lot of comments, including those from our own County Commissioners, who say that they (and we) need to follow the science. Here is the science. "Distancing, hybrid models, classroom barriers, HEPA filters, and, most notably, requiring student masking were each found to not have a statistically significant benefit. In other words, these measures could not be said to be effective." This comes directly from the CDC and study done in December of 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7021e1.htm?
If you are deferring to these health organizations to solidify your decision on whether a mask mandate is necessary on the least vulnerable population, then this data is important. It is real, factual data. Not opinion and fear. We can also look right here in Adams County. Strasburg School District did not require masks in the elementary school last school year and had little to no disruptions and no cases linked to the school itself. Mandates are unscientific. It's time to opt out
Please opt out of this mandate. Requiring kids to wear masks all day can be detrimental to their physical and developmental health (they need to see the facial expressions of their peers and teachers) and can have mental health repercussions as well. Kids touch their faces much more with masks on, this increasing the chance of spreading germs. They also put their masks on germ-filled surfaces and just don’t keep them all that clean. Wearing masks all day for kids increases their exposure to germs. Please opt out.
I'd like to see a mandate for all k-12. I agree with 2-4 being a bit much with requiring the masks. I also feel and know that my teen said he'd rather where masks than be remote again. Don't people understand that remote isolation is worse than the masks??
My name is Dr. Lora Erickson and as a licensed clinical provider CO, FL, & IL,I am in support of continuing the mask mandate per both the CDC & AAP guidance (including CO ch.). Those opposing mask mandates don't have the backing of any large, credible health organizations. 7-day average of infections in Adams Co. was 34 on 7/26. On 8.22, it was 378 (see email of full scholarly references). Distribution of new infections/ hospitalizations has shifted downward; young kids now represent a greater % of infections/ hospitalizations. Per 7/7, 200,000+ kids in the U.S. had been hospitalized & nearly 400 kids had died from COVID.
Low levels of infections in kids during the previous school year were the result of mitigation efforts in schools (e.g.masks) (cite 5, 7).As a licensed clinical provider, there are serious social ramifications to optional masking. I have not had any patients with mental illness due to masks, but plenty due to isolation /social stigma.
Please opt out of the mask mandate. Let the districts decide what is best for their school. These kids need to be kids and back to a normal school year. Children has a less than 1% of getting COVID and over a 99% chance of surviving. During flu season schools never closed or made kids wear a masks. TCPH are not elected officials and should not be deciding what is best for our children. Keep local control. Not all of Adams county is the same. This is causing a bigger divide between rural and suburbs once more. Once again please opt out of the mask mandates and let districts decide what is “best” for their school and community.
I am opposed to the mask mandate and ask that you make them optional. It’s very unfair to ask parents to completely dismiss the mountain of evidence of the negative effects from masks on children. Such as emotional development harms, infectious harms, actual medical harms, like breathing in CO2 all day, which their same experts claim is killing our planet, but strapping a mask on our kids to have them breath in their own CO2 it totally healthy??. The suicide rate has sky rocketed this last year due to these extreme measures. A one size fits all approach has never been the solution in medicine and isn’t scientifically based. Please leave the decision up to the parents.
Please do not mandate masks for children in school. They are not the vulnerable population for COVID, thus wearing masks really causes them more harm than good. Children with masks on actually touch their faces more frequently and are spreading more germs that way. Not to mention they are breathing in CO2 all day and when they have their faces covered at school it makes it really hard to communicate and interact with teachers/peers. The best course of action to keep our children healthy is to keep sick kids at home and frequently provide time for children to wash their hands, especially prior to eating.
Clearly, people disagree about what is best for the kids, so it should be left up to the parents to decide what is best for our own children. If some parents feel it is best for their kids to wear masks then that is something they can easily do. But wearing masks should not be something forced on these young children and the parents who should have the right to choose.
Please opt out of this mask mandate. We should be able to choose what is right for our children. I'm not against masks. Parents can have their children wear 1 or 14. I don't care. But don't force it on my child. My 8 year old has had said she thought it would be better to be dead, she feels like she isn't heard, masks are dehumanizing her. Please give us the option. So many children have died of suicide in the last 18 months. And yes, children, young kids taking their lives because of this crap. Give them their dignity and face back!
The dogma of mask efficacy needs to stop. To date there isn't a single peer reviewed study that supports the efficacy of mask usage amongst the population much less school aged children. This country does not operate of the WORD of "experts". Experts are indeed required to present sound evidence for their claims. The people then make their own choices based off expert opinion through their representatives. Our representatives are tasked with taking a balanced perspective not simply appealing to authority because 70,000 pediatricians signed off. That is not how science nor our body of government works.
I implore you to OPT OUT of the mask mandate. Please use critical thinking and common sense in your decision. Masks are ineffective and unsanitary. There is no scientific study that supports the efficacy of cloth facial coverings when it comes to stopping the spread of COVID-19. Furthermore, the harm it does to our children’s mental and physical health is far greater than COVID-19 itself. Lastly, we are Americans, we do not live our lives in fear nor do we expect someone else to be responsible for us. We all are capable of making our own decisions as to what’s best for our family and ourselves. We are a community who cares for each other, not a collective who is beholden to each other.
I do not support mask mandates for any age of children. Covid is not a threat to children. Those children that have been effected had prior health issues and the percentage is less than 1%. The real issue that you should be worried about the rise in mental health issues among children due to the isolation and mask wearing. Please listen to the people and do what's right.
I'm writing in opposition of the school mask mandate; this should be at the discretion of the school or furthermore - the parents. Same goes for the vaccine.
Please understand the vast diversity of our county and our health needs. In our community we have had a low amount of cases and even lower transmission rates. Our youngest, most impressionable children were not required to wear masks before the vaccine was available. Now that the vast majority of their teachers, parents, and community are vaccinated it makes even less sense to require them to wear masks as the rates have stayed very low in our community. The mandate makes inaccurate assumptions of data (ie rates rising in August are because students aren't wearing masks. Inaccurate as last year our community rates didn't increase more than others when we had no masks, and some schools are requiring masks already and seeing rates rise). Everyone should be able to have the freedom to decide what is best for their own children. We all have the data available and know the risks and how much they vary. We as parents and community members should have the right to choose.
Right now we are in a mental health state of emergency. The childirens hospital is overwhelmed with mental health needs accross the psychiatric departments as well as the medical units as well as at various times the emergency department. Over whelmed. We are NOT overwhelmed with covid cases. In fact, many of the mental health patients I have worked with that are "covid-positive" are completely asymptomatic. Kids are not hospitalized becauese of covid. They are defintiely being hospitalized because of suicide attempts, depression, fear, as well as drug-induced psychosis. As far as covid and masks are concerned there are zero peer reviewed studies showing kids are asymptomatic spreaders and ZERO peer reviewed studies that demonstrate the efficacy of any type of mask in terms of covid transmissibility. Think about that. Where is the science? Masks mandates make absolutely no sense. Mask should NOT be mandated.
Please opt out of the mask mandate and let each district decide on their own. I know there are two sides to this and we all have our own concerns and hesitations. I personally oppose a mask mandate and believe parents should decide what is best for their child- physically, mentally, and emotionally.
What concerns me is if Adams County stays in this mask mandate, the schools hands are tied. Which means my son’s preschool, where 2-6 year olds attend, will need to mask up. My 3 year old is simply trying to grasp potty training and how to listen to a teacher, let alone having the county reach into the schools and mandate that he must wear a mask while doing all of this. Especially a private school where we pay tuition. Let these schools decide on their own in collaboration with their parents.
Please opt out and put the control back where it belongs. Thank you!
Please opt out of Tri County Health Mandate. Parents should have the right to make their own health decisions on behalf of their children. There has been an state of emergency for Children's Hospital due to the incredibly high number of kids trying and committing suicide. This is a mental health crisis. The small amount of kids that have been able to get a mask exemption for health reasons are getting ostracized and isolated from their peers. This only adds to our mental health problems. Mask choice allows some to wear mask and others not, so kids are not being isolated for their choice.
I believe that the responsibility of a minor lies with the Parent. It is the parent’s responsibility to determine the risk and chose what is appropriate for the child, not the Adams County Board. For this reason, I strongly oppose a mask mandate implemented at a county level. I think that each school within the district should have the ability to adopt its own policy for masks based on the needs of that school. Parents can then make an educated decision for their children. I personally do not think masks provide additional protection for kids from a virus that has been proven to be less impactful on children. I worry about the long term affects masks will have on my kids and I do not want to subject them to wearing them all day. This is about choice. If parents are concerned and want to take extra precautions, I fully support that right to choose a school that has a mask mandate. Those of us against the mandate should also have the same right to choose. Thank you for your support.
I feel that parents of school children should have a choice of either wearing or not wearing a mask. Please OP OUT of Tri County health's regulations for mandatory mask wearing. This age group is the LEAST at risk for contacting the Covid 19 virus. World wide there is NO BENEFIT to children who either wear a mask or do not wear a mask. CDC's own experiment report, has shown there is no benefit for wearing a mask.
I am asking the County Commissioners to give a voice back to their constituents, the people who elected them to serve. The recent TCHD mask mandate is an overreach of power and an attempt to undermine our local government and its citizens. Let us be a county of integrity. Let us be a county of parental choice. Let us be a county where everyone feels they have a voice…not just the ones who fall on a certain side of the aisle. Have faith that your constituents are able to make the best health decisions for themselves and their families. I urge you to opt out of this mandate and release power of CHOICE back to the people.
I believe that it should be the school/childcare center and parents choice for their child to wear a mask or not. Forcing all students to do so when their is little data to show the efficacy of masks is unreasonable. What we do know, is that students who are forced to wear masks are unable to read the emotional and physical body cues that are worn by their peers and teachers. Hearing impaired students are adversely affected by this as well, further prohibiting their ability to interact with others. Making masks optional allows every family and student decide what is best for them on an individual level.
I see a lot of comments, including those from our own County Commissioners, who say that they (and we) need to follow the science. Here is the science. "Distancing, hybrid models, classroom barriers, HEPA filters, and, most notably, requiring student masking were each found to not have a statistically significant benefit. In other words, these measures could not be said to be effective." This comes directly from the CDC and study done in December of 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7021e1.htm?
If you are deferring to these health organizations to solidify your decision on whether a mask mandate is necessary on the least vulnerable population, then this data is important. It is real, factual data. Not opinion and fear. We can also look right here in Adams County. Strasburg School District did not require masks in the elementary school last school year and had little to no disruptions and no cases linked to the school itself. Mandates are unscientific. It's time to opt out
Please opt out of this mandate. Requiring kids to wear masks all day can be detrimental to their physical and developmental health (they need to see the facial expressions of their peers and teachers) and can have mental health repercussions as well. Kids touch their faces much more with masks on, this increasing the chance of spreading germs. They also put their masks on germ-filled surfaces and just don’t keep them all that clean. Wearing masks all day for kids increases their exposure to germs. Please opt out.
I'd like to see a mandate for all k-12. I agree with 2-4 being a bit much with requiring the masks. I also feel and know that my teen said he'd rather where masks than be remote again. Don't people understand that remote isolation is worse than the masks??
My name is Dr. Lora Erickson and as a licensed clinical provider CO, FL, & IL,I am in support of continuing the mask mandate per both the CDC & AAP guidance (including CO ch.). Those opposing mask mandates don't have the backing of any large, credible health organizations. 7-day average of infections in Adams Co. was 34 on 7/26. On 8.22, it was 378 (see email of full scholarly references). Distribution of new infections/ hospitalizations has shifted downward; young kids now represent a greater % of infections/ hospitalizations. Per 7/7, 200,000+ kids in the U.S. had been hospitalized & nearly 400 kids had died from COVID.
Low levels of infections in kids during the previous school year were the result of mitigation efforts in schools (e.g.masks) (cite 5, 7).As a licensed clinical provider, there are serious social ramifications to optional masking. I have not had any patients with mental illness due to masks, but plenty due to isolation /social stigma.
Please opt out of the mask mandate. Let the districts decide what is best for their school. These kids need to be kids and back to a normal school year. Children has a less than 1% of getting COVID and over a 99% chance of surviving. During flu season schools never closed or made kids wear a masks. TCPH are not elected officials and should not be deciding what is best for our children. Keep local control. Not all of Adams county is the same. This is causing a bigger divide between rural and suburbs once more. Once again please opt out of the mask mandates and let districts decide what is “best” for their school and community.
I am opposed to the mask mandate and ask that you make them optional. It’s very unfair to ask parents to completely dismiss the mountain of evidence of the negative effects from masks on children. Such as emotional development harms, infectious harms, actual medical harms, like breathing in CO2 all day, which their same experts claim is killing our planet, but strapping a mask on our kids to have them breath in their own CO2 it totally healthy??. The suicide rate has sky rocketed this last year due to these extreme measures. A one size fits all approach has never been the solution in medicine and isn’t scientifically based. Please leave the decision up to the parents.
Please do not mandate masks for children in school. They are not the vulnerable population for COVID, thus wearing masks really causes them more harm than good. Children with masks on actually touch their faces more frequently and are spreading more germs that way. Not to mention they are breathing in CO2 all day and when they have their faces covered at school it makes it really hard to communicate and interact with teachers/peers. The best course of action to keep our children healthy is to keep sick kids at home and frequently provide time for children to wash their hands, especially prior to eating.
Clearly, people disagree about what is best for the kids, so it should be left up to the parents to decide what is best for our own children. If some parents feel it is best for their kids to wear masks then that is something they can easily do. But wearing masks should not be something forced on these young children and the parents who should have the right to choose.
Please opt out of this mask mandate. We should be able to choose what is right for our children. I'm not against masks. Parents can have their children wear 1 or 14. I don't care. But don't force it on my child. My 8 year old has had said she thought it would be better to be dead, she feels like she isn't heard, masks are dehumanizing her. Please give us the option. So many children have died of suicide in the last 18 months. And yes, children, young kids taking their lives because of this crap. Give them their dignity and face back!
The dogma of mask efficacy needs to stop. To date there isn't a single peer reviewed study that supports the efficacy of mask usage amongst the population much less school aged children. This country does not operate of the WORD of "experts". Experts are indeed required to present sound evidence for their claims. The people then make their own choices based off expert opinion through their representatives. Our representatives are tasked with taking a balanced perspective not simply appealing to authority because 70,000 pediatricians signed off. That is not how science nor our body of government works.
I implore you to OPT OUT of the mask mandate. Please use critical thinking and common sense in your decision. Masks are ineffective and unsanitary. There is no scientific study that supports the efficacy of cloth facial coverings when it comes to stopping the spread of COVID-19. Furthermore, the harm it does to our children’s mental and physical health is far greater than COVID-19 itself. Lastly, we are Americans, we do not live our lives in fear nor do we expect someone else to be responsible for us. We all are capable of making our own decisions as to what’s best for our family and ourselves. We are a community who cares for each other, not a collective who is beholden to each other.
I do not support mask mandates for any age of children. Covid is not a threat to children. Those children that have been effected had prior health issues and the percentage is less than 1%. The real issue that you should be worried about the rise in mental health issues among children due to the isolation and mask wearing. Please listen to the people and do what's right.