BY
Sara Del Valle & Hugh Greenberg
Lauren & Dan Coupland
Teresa Ribeiro
Tina DeYoe
Chris Neale
Kristi & Peter Lamborn
Melissa Bartlett
Natalie Melaschenko & Adam Collins
Eric Schaller
As parents, we are frustrated and deeply disappointed about the recent unanimous decision by the LAPS board to make masks optional in school settings. As the governing body, the board is responsible for implementing policies that protect our children. Sadly, this decision failed to do so.
Regardless of how you feel about masks, we can all agree on the following:
- We are all tired of COVID.
- We all want our schools open, recognizing that in-person education is more beneficial and less disruptive to our families and the community.
- We all want to protect our children from harm, including the very real risks from COVID.
We are all ready to be “done” with COVID. Unfortunately, this virus is not done with us. A more infectious Omicron variant (called BA.2) has emerged, accounting for more than a third of known global COVID cases. Additionally, scientists believe that the virus will not go away, but will continue to evolve, resulting in new waves of infection for the foreseeable future. The repeated rounds of epidemic spread over the last two years mean that “going back to normal” can only happen when COVID infections are no longer pushing our hospitals to the breaking point, and we are no longer seeing huge levels of debilitating disease and death. The good news is that a “new normal” can be reached with vaccines, non-pharmaceutical interventions such as masks, and treatments that decrease impacts to the population, health, and society.
Keeping our schools open for in-person learning is something that is, as we all know from experience, important. The complication of course is that COVID is overwhelmingly transmitted through the air, and mostly indoors, which describes school pretty well. Unfortunately, all sorts of wrong and complicated arguments about how masks are ineffective and unimportant in schools have been made. However, the scientific evidence, is clear that masks reduce the spread of COVID and when in crowded conditions, such as schools, more is better. Additionally, while the governor lifted the mandate (partly to stop being sued), she is still recommending them and empowering communities to be the change we want to see in the world. Moreover, the new CDC framework to guide on- and off-ramps for public health measures, such as masks, clearly puts Los Alamos in the high category, which means that everyone needs to mask indoors.
In addition, the combination of a very contagious variant, no masks, and guidelines that require schools to close when 5% of the school population is infected will lead to school closures. Therefore, if we want the schools to remain open, we need masking with the very best masks for all 7-9 hours in congregated school settings in order to stop the transmission chain. We also need to require, not just recommend PCR tests for close contacts in order to reduce the potential exposure to susceptible students given the wide range of sensitivity of antigen tests.
To protect our children, we have to be realistic and recognize that the high levels of disability and death that define this pandemic are not finished, even among children. In children under 17, the US has reported over 10 million cases, nearly 1,000 deaths, and in fact COVID was the 7th cause of death in the 5-14 age group. While 1,000 deaths may not sound alarming to you, children are by far the healthiest part of the population, and in most years fewer than 500 die of flu. We must use our most powerful tools, masks and vaccines, to protect our children and community. The risk from weakening one of these two tools is serious and unnecessary.
As such, we need a cautious, incremental approach to removing masks in school when risks are low. Deciding when to allow masks to be optional and when to reinstate them, if necessary, should be based on hard evidence, specifically by sampling county wastewater to monitor community spread, knowledge of new or emerging variants, continuous testing, and vaccination levels among students. For example, while the middle and high schools have an 84% vaccination rate and many booster doses, the elementary schools are still around 63% and unboosted. It is imperative that, for the health of our children and community, our school leaders base their decisions on accurate, evidence-based information that includes the guidance provided by the scientific advisory board and parents’ surveys. Unfortunately, that was not the case with their decision to make masks optional. We ask that the school board reconsider.
Sara Del Valle & Hugh Greenberg
Carrie Manore & Kyle Hickmann
Erin Tatge & Reid Priedhorsky
Lauren & Dan Coupland
Teresa Ribeiro
Tina DeYoe
Chris Neale
Kristi & Peter Lamborn
Melissa Bartlett
Natalie Melaschenko & Adam Collins
Eric Schaller
1…..Los Alamos Public Schools Board Votes Unanimously To Make COVID-19 Masks Optional Except For Pre-School And On School Buses https://losalamosreporter.com/2022/02/21/los-alamos-public-schools-board-votes-unanimously-to-make-covid-19-masks-optional-except-for-pre-school-and-on-school-buses/
2……Facemasks Against COVID-19: An Evidence Review. https://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf
3…..Still Confused About Facemasks? Here is the Science Behind How Facemasks Prevent Coronavirus. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent
4…….COVID-19 Community Levels. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/community-levels.html
5….COVID-19 Leading Cause of Death Ranking. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/covid-19-leading-cause-of-death-ranking/