Mask Madness: Who Is In Charge?
Politicians continue dysfunctional chess match, leaving massive leadership gap with no end in sight
(Photo Credit: Illinois Newsroom)
The latest twist in the Great Mask Game of 2021 came down Wednesday with a leaked document and more questions about it means.
Dr. Ezike, Governor Pritzker’s lead appointed “expert” with the Illinois Department of Public Health, signed a letter dated May 17. Here is a copy of the letter:
Why is this document important? The “Notice of Emergency Repeal of Emergency Rule” revokes the January 4th JCAR Emergency Rule that mandated mask-wearing in Illinois.
This from the above IDPH document signed by Dr. Ezike May 17:
This rule required people over age two who are able to medically tolerate a face covering (a mask or cloth face covering to cover their nose and mouth) to use a face covering when in a public place and they are unable to maintain at least a six-foot social distance. This requirement also applied whether in an indoor space, such as a store, or in an outdoor space. Any business, service, facility or organization open to the public or employees was to require employees, customers, and other individuals on the premises to cover their nose and mouth with a face covering when on premises. This requirement also applies to all schools and day care facilities. Additionally, the emergency rule also prohibited gatherings of more than 50 people (or gatherings of 50% or more of a building's maximum occupancy if 50% of a building's maximum occupancy is less than 50 people). The CDC recommendations dated May 13, 2021 render the emergency rule in effect to be outdated.
So no more mask wearing? The Game is won!
No so fast. This is Illinois after all. The politics run deep.
The same day that Dr. Ezike signed the ER repeal, Pritzker signed another Executive Order (EO). Named EO-79, it states the following as it relates to schools:
Individuals in schools, day care settings, and educational institutions should continue to follow separate guidance issued by the Illinois State Board of Education, Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, and the Illinois Department of Public Health.
What “guidance” has come down from ISBE and IDPH?
Mask-wearing at all times and reckless quarantining rules, leading to the isolation of healthy teenagers.
Unclear is this—amidst all the recent paperwork, repeals, EO’s and alphabet soup entanglement of state agencies, what does it all mean for mask-wearing for kids in schools moving forward?
Let’s go all the way back…to last week.
Last Thursday, the CDC dropped a stunner when it released new guidance stating that for those vaccinated, masks can come off.
The news represented a complete about face from the Biden Administration. Since President Biden took office in January, the messaging on COVID-19 had been relentless, one of gloom and doom and how we as Americans would never achieve normalcy unless we continued to work the 3 W’s into a daily practice, got vaccinated and avoided states with “neanderthal thinking.”
(Schools returning to full time in person learning is not completely endorsed by Biden, a running scared leadership style more and more Americans object to.)
But knowing Americans are fatigued with COVID-19 restrictions, the masks came off and a new tagline emerged from public health officials: “your health is in your hands.”
The timing is no accident.
In his newsletter The Dossier, Jordan Schachtel writes:
The Biden Administration is dealing with countless domestic and international crises, in addition to a sinking economy, among many other impending bubbles and catastrophes. They needed a way out as soon as humanly possible. COVID Mania had so many residual effects that it began to threaten the integrity of the entire system. They needed an exit strategy, so they simply asserted their insider privilege, moved the political appointees and the federal bureaucracy into order, and switched off COVID Mania like it was no big deal.
But the “Mania” won’t go away that quickly.
Not when the corporate mainstream press continues to fan the flames of mask politics, publishing stories featuring people who say they have no intention of removing their masks.
Not when high profile politicians like Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot go on national television shows and say vaccination status has no bearing on mask wearing:
Not when, on the heels of the CDC’s May 13 recommendation that masks could come off for the vaccinated, the same CDC, two days later, issued guidance on mask wearing as it relates to schools:
The CDC recommends schools continue to use the COVID-19 prevention strategies outlined in the current version of CDC’s Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools for at least the remainder of the 2020-2021 academic school year.”
One of these “prevention strategies,” of course, includes mask wearing.
All of this reveals how the status quo is intact with Covid—mixed messaging from political leaders, no consistency from public health agencies, the inefficiency passed down to school districts whom continue to prefer abundance of caution over logic and reason.
Wednesday in the Chicago Tribune, this from the superintendent of Indian Prairie School District 204 (Naperville) on plans for the the 2021-22 school year:
“We are expecting our kids to be in session, coming in like they normally were before the pandemic happened,” Adrian Talley told the school board Monday.
The only difference is social distancing and face masks will continue to be required, he said. All students will eat lunch at school separated by six feet but spacing in classrooms will be three feet, he said.
“We fully understand that things are changing almost on a daily basis,” Talley said. “As of right now, these are the requirements the state has given us and therefore those are the protocols we must continue to follow. As things change at the state level, we will update accordingly.”
Where are the school board members objecting to Talley’s recommendation? Nowhere. Let’s keep pushing vaccine education and convert our schools into health care centers rather then read up on deeply researched studies that revel the harmful effects of mask-wearing in schools.
This from an April article in the New York-based City Journal Magazine:
Researchers from the University of Witten/Herdecke in Germany have catalogued other problems. They established an online registry for parents to report on the side effects of mask-wearing. Among the nearly 18,000 parents who chose to respond (not a random sample, obviously), more than half reported that the masks were giving their children headaches and making it difficult for them to concentrate. More than one-third cited other side effects: increased reluctance to go to school, unhappiness, malaise, impaired learning, drowsiness, and fatigue. After considering those reports as well as testimony from other researchers, a court in Weimar, Germany, recently ruled in favor of a parent arguing that her children’s basic rights were being violated by the mandates for masks and social distancing at her children’s two schools. The court ordered the schools to end the mandates, declaring that they damaged the “mental, physical and spiritual well-being” of students while failing to offer “any discernible benefit for the children themselves or for third parties.”
In school board meetings since the Mask Madness of May 13, superintendents and board of education members, in public comments, insist their schools will follow the “CDC guidance” as it pertains to public health.
District 95 superintendent Kelley Gallt said in a May 13 board meeting that she was waiting for the Lake County Health Department and IDPH to issue their own recommendation on mask wearing “for those who are fully vaccinated.”
Gallt added:
Currently, my intentions are to follow the guidance we have been given and to not make that change until the health department provides that recommendation to us
But after the events of this week, what “guidance” has the most authority? IDPH? CDC? School districts? Pritzker?
Bueller?
Back to the emergency rule repeal.
For an Executive Order to have legal standing, there must be a state law or regulation that allows its enforceability. For instance, if a governor decided that a certain breed of dog was dangerous to the community, a law would have to be passed that backed his position. He couldn’t just sign an EO that stated, “large Chows are a menace and must be eliminated from all property,” and then all Chow owners would be absent a pet.
(One could argue quite legitimately Pritzker has acted tyrannically throughout Covid. He certainly has accumulated power at the expense of Illinoisans and elevated his standing amongst other likeminded Democratic czars.)
When Pritzker passed his latest 150-day ER in January requiring masks be worn by anyone over the age of two, he could do so comfortably without legal challenge because the state public health agency provided cover.
With the revoking of the ER Monday, using language directly linking the decision to the May 13 CDC announcement, there is now no law or regulation on the books that makes Pritzker’s EO enforceable. Schools, told by their lawyers they could be found liable if they did not impose the mask mandate, can no longer use the “we can get sued” excuse. The repeal, in theory, disposes of public health guidelines requiring masks in schools.
Or does it?
A downstate lawyer named Thomas DeVore (a foe of Pritzker’s who on his Facebook page refers to himself as an “Illinois Attorney working to educate The People of the State about Government overreach”) said this on a livestream broadcast Wednesday night about the revoking of the ER and Pritzker’s May 17 EO:
There is no emergency rule through the Department of Public Health anymore. It doesn’t exist. It was repealed. What does it mean? It means businesses can do what they want…don’t worry about (EO) throw it in the garbage, no one is going to care anyway, they can’t enforce it. Schools can no longer say ‘well we can get in trouble with our school board with this published guidance’…it was an argument they could make, well there is no guidance anymore. It doesn’t exist. You have a Governor’s Executive Order, that’s not health guidance legally or practically.
I would hope today there are quite a few school districts fielding calls from parents asking about what all of this means.
And also consulting lawyers.
But before all the EO’s and ER’s get sorted out, an opportunity presents itself for parents and students. No need to book an attorney’s consultation.
Take the masks off.
The month of May is the season of recognition. Senior Night for athletic teams. Graduation ceremonies. Public displays affirming loyalty and solidarity towards purpose and association.
A scroll through Twitter finds photos and photos of recent Senior Night events.
What do you see? What do you not see?
I don’t know where this is headed. All of the bureaucratic jockeying is enough to make a person’s head explode.
I do know this—politicians are going to politic. Pritzker’s gonna Pritzker. Superintendents are going to superintendent. They are on their own timetables, concerned most with protecting The Code that following the current science.
In light of events this week, I don't know how anyone can trust "guidance" as it relates to masking. Who is in charge? Beats me.
But the time is now for the unmasking of our kids.
As with any movement, it starts at the local schoolhouse.
Parents and students? With senior nights and graduations taking place, these are moments to fill the leadership gap with rational action and common sense behavior.
Take the masks off.
Show your local community (and the country) you won’t take it anymore.