When President Joe Biden signed a package of bills over the weekend to avoid a government shutdown, he also made law Sen. J.D. Vance’s legislation to stop federal mask mandates from the Department of Transportation.
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Rhode Island convinced parents last month to drop their 2021 lawsuit against its gone-but-not-forgotten COVID-19 mask mandates in schools by pledging to hold public hearings should it seek to reimpose them.
Now the Ocean State is proposing a health regulation under which it could force kids to mask up again without justifying it through scientific evidence, allegedly violating the dismissal stipulation that ended the case Dec. 13.
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Louisiana parents opposed to COVID mRNA shots for their children won a victory as the state’s department of health rescinded its mandate that schoolchildren be injected.
The Louisiana Department of Health repealed its mandate Tuesday, leading Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) to file a motion to dismiss his lawsuit, Crews v. Edwards, against Governor John Bel Edwards (D).
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Head Start, the federal program providing preschool and child care for low-income families, will require COVID-19 masks for children 2 and older this school year, which is inconsistent with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
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The largest school district in New Jersey is going ahead with plans to implement a mask mandate during the 2022-2023 school year, according to district policy.
Newark Public Schools in Essex County, New Jersey, is requiring students and educators to wear a mask on all school “locations and grounds” to combat COVID-19, according to the district policy. The school district also says educators and teachers should practice social distancing by remaining three feet away from one another, washing hands frequently and staying home if one has a fever of 100.4.
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The U.S. Department of Justice has appealed a federal judge’s ruling overturning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) mask mandate on planes, trains and in airports.
In her ruling to overturn the mandate, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle called the CDC mandate “unlawful,” saying the Biden administration did not follow proper procedures and went beyond its authority in making the rule.
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Four major U.S. airlines are ditching COVID-19 mask requirements after a federal judge in Florida on Monday struck down the Biden administration’s mask mandate for air passengers and others mass travelers.
Several airlines, including United Airlines, Delta, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines announced that they were dropping the mask requirements for passengers and employees.
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Waterbury Public Schools will shift to optional mask requirements on March 7, according to a letter distributed to students, parents, and staff.
The district, which had previously remained hesitant, will allow students to continue to wear a mask, if they do not feel comfortable.
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The University of Connecticut announced Thursday a change in its mask mandate from “required” to “recommended,” but said students, faculty, staff, and visitors would still be required to wear masks in all classes, labs, rehearsal rooms, and other spaces on the school’s campuses at least until April 1.
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Although Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont (D) allowed the statewide school-mask mandate to end on Monday, the Hamden Board of Education (BOE) voted that evening to indefinitely extend its requirement.
The vote came down along party lines, with Republican BOE members Austin Cesare, Kevin Shea and Gary Walsh supporting the mandate’s cancellation; Board Chair Melissa A. Kaplan as well as fellow Democrats David Asbery, Siobhan Carter-David, Mariam Khan and Réuel Parks voted to keep it.
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Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser is lifting the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and will not extend its mask requirement into March.
The Democratic mayor also says that as of Tuesday many businesses in the nation’s capital will no longer be required to check that customers have at least one dose of the vaccine before allowing them to enter. However, they will still be allowed to make such a request on their own, according to dcist.com.
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Two years after COVID burst on the American scene, leading to lockdowns, school closures, mask and vaccine mandates, and trillions of dollars in emergency government spending, the question on many minds is: When will the emergency end?
The answer to that question is not an easy one. An examination of past emergencies does not resolve it. Rather, it is clear that emergency situations, including this one, may be understood through various lenses, yielding different perspectives on what the endpoint will be.
Take, by way of comparison, World War II, an emergency that had at least four distinct endings because it had at least four distinct faces:
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As the mid-term elections approach, a number of Democrat governors are now following in the steps of Republican Governors Ron DeSantis (FL) and Glenn Youngkin (VA) in support of dropping mask mandates.
Supported by their political and media allies, the governors of states, including New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, California, and Oregon are now announcing mask mandates in schools may be dropped soon, as the New York Times reported Tuesday.
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Allegations that “masks work” and “don’t cause harm” have been enforced by governments and corporations around the world for more than 18 months through arrests, firings, censorship, fines, and denial of access to schools, supermarkets, hospitals, streets, and other public spaces. This has made it virtually impossible for many people to live without complying with mask mandates.
In recent weeks, however, more medical scholars and media outlets are coming to grips with facts about masks that Just Facts has been documenting for more than a year and painstakingly compiled in a September 2021 article sourced with more than 50 peer-reviewed science journals. Here’s a sample of people who are speaking up about the facts and their implications:
Dr. Vinay Prasad—an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco—has written an article that examines the scientific evidence for masking children and concludes that:
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Iowa schools must require masking when necessary as a reasonable accommodation for students with disabilities, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at St. Louis ruled Tuesday.
The court cited the Rehabilitation Act Section 504 in its determination.
What’s more, Iowa statute currently allows masking when federal law requires it, the court ruled, American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa said in an explainer of the ruling.
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Missouri Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt completed on Friday a promise made earlier this week by filing lawsuits against 36 public school districts for requiring masks.
“Mask mandates in schools are illegal, they simply don’t work, and they contribute to alarming and negative psychological impacts on our children,” Schmitt, a candidate for the seat of retiring Republican U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, said in a statement announcing the lawsuits. “My Office has been on the frontlines of the fight to end the forced masking of children all day in school, and today we took concrete legal action toward that end. Parents and families, not bureaucrats, should have the power to decide what’s best for their children. With this litigation, we’re seeking to return that power back to parents and families, where it belongs.”
Earlier this week, leaders of two Missouri public school district collaboratives told The Center Square that attorneys for many school boards believe two Missouri statutes require districts to create and enforce policies to ensure the health and safety of students. Schmitt stated a November Cole County Circuit Court ruling, now being appealed by St. Louis and Jackson Counties at the Missouri Court of Appeals, prevents school districts from enforcing any public health orders. Schmitt set up an email box through his office in December and received 11,000 messages and photographs from people witnessing mask requirements in public schools.
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A Circuit Court Judge on Wednesday denied Missouri Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s request for a temporary restraining order to stop a mask requirement approved by the St. Louis County Council on Jan. 5.
Democrat Rita Heard Days, chair of the Council, didn’t know what to expect from the court.
“At this particular point, I’m not surprised about anything,” Days told The Center Square after an event in Hazelwood on Thursday. “This thing has taken a life of its own. People are trying to cope with all of this. We just hope we can get over this and move on.”
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