Another botched COVID message to the public. Get it together, state leaders
Angry parents and educators venting before Stanislaus County leaders Tuesday morning seemed unaware that their primary demand — that the state not require children to wear masks in elementary school classrooms — may already have been granted.
Who can blame them? State public health officials once again fumbled its message to the public, leaving everyone scratching their heads, if not fuming in frustration.
Those packing the Stanislaus Board of Supervisors chamber in Modesto apparently mobilized after Monday’s announcement by the California Department of Public Health that schools must turn away pupils not wearing masks. A few hours later, the agency began walking back that controversial statement in a Tweet, and a spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom seemed to reinforce the retreat Monday evening, but no one in Tuesday’s audience seemed to have gotten that news until the venting was done.
Why county leaders waited until the very end to have a health official try clarifying the situation is a mystery. But it’s hard to find fault with them as well, given the ever-shifting landscape.
State leaders must end this COVID-guidance whiplash and clearly state what’s expected and required.
CDPH must affirm its earlier decision requiring masks in schools, or declare that local school districts will make that call. The agency must never say one thing, then use social media a few hours later to say another.
Wobbly messaging from our leaders on all levels has eroded the public trust since the COVID-19 pandemic struck early last year. It’s one reason more than 63,000 people have died of the coronavirus in California, including 1,078 in Stanislaus County.
Polarized Stanislaus views on masks
Tuesday’s audience delivered spirited arguments against a mask mandate for school children. Viewers should not be fooled into thinking that they represent all families.
Many could summon just as much passion to remind all that the Delta variant threat is real, is provoking an uptick in cases and is killing people anew across the globe, almost all of them unvaccinated. And that the lowest-cost, most effective means of combating spread — especially in children younger than 12 who have no vaccine option, and aren’t as adept at social distancing — is simply wearing a mask around others.
Parents: No one thinks it’s fun to muzzle your kids. If that’s what is needed for schools to stay open — safely — it’s not an impossible sacrifice. All of us have proven that mask wearing is doable, especially if it’s known that the measure will be temporary.
Meanwhile, California leaders must stop the mixed messaging and give it to us straight.