About 200 students from Seattle Public Schools walked out Monday, March 21, in protest of the school district’s decision to lift the mask mandate. Students rallied outside the district headquarters at the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence and called on school administrators to reinstate the mask mandate.
Organized by the Seattle Student Union, students from across the district expressed their concerns, fears and outrage over how they feel the district has disregarded legitimate coronavirus safety concerns.
Many students at the rally described painful experiences with COVID-19 and how the decision to make mask wearing optional puts vulnerable family members at risk.
A student named Lance said that their mom has psoriatic arthritis, making her immunocompromised.
“How are we expecting immunocompromised people; people who are disabled; [or] people who are more at risk — or unevenly neglected by the system — to fend off sicknesses, let alone one that has killed and hospitalized millions of people by this point?” Lance said.
A senior from Nova High School said that they felt that the school district was repeating the same mistake over and over again by lifting mandates, only to have to reinstate them again later.
“Every time we try to get hasty and toss our masks off, we have another spike, and another thousand people die. Why are we still acting like we don’t know what the memo is?” the student said. “My mom has asthma, if she gets this, she’s dead. She’s been stuck in her house for two years.”
A senior from the Center School said that their entire family was at high risk to COVID-19. After they and their mom caught the virus in December, they struggled with long COVID symptoms.
“For months after that, I could not sprint,” they said. “I could not move my body quickly without having an asthma attack. I could barely walk normally. It is not something that can just go away if you don’t die. It affects everybody long term.”
The student also argued that masks are beneficial for all people, regardless of whether or not they can get vaccinated. Several of their friends aren’t vaccinated because their parents won’t allow it.
“Masks protect ourselves, they protect the people around us, they protect people who can’t get vaccinated,” they said.
Bev Redmond, assistant superintendent of public affairs at Seattle Public Schools, said in a statement that the district strongly recommended mask wearing and blamed the lifting of the mask mandate on Gov. Jay Inslee.
“We also realize that Gov. Jay Inslee’s March 12 lifting of the masking mandate came fast for some and without an extended time for adjustment,” Redmond said.
Some public health experts seem to support the decision to lift the mask mandate, saying that the risk is significantly decreased.
According to Ali Mokdad, a professor and chief strategy officer of Population Health at the University of Washington, the COVID-19 situation is much better now than at earlier times during the pandemic due to vaccinations and a large portion of the public having been recently infected with the Omicron variant.
“About 70 percent of us are immune to the virus right now,” Mokdad said. “So masks are not needed anymore in a way to contain the virus. However, you have to look at your own situation and decide whether a mask is needed for you.”
“Schools are part of the community,” he said. “If the circulation of the virus is very high in the community, wearing a mask in school is crucially important. If circulation of the virus is very low in the community, wearing a mask at school doesn’t make any sense at that time, because the kids’ exposure within the school will be limited compared to their exposure in their community.”
Mokdad said that he believed that people should be able to decide whether or not to wear a mask and that the public knows the benefits of mask usage.
“In general, there is no harm of wearing a mask, and it should be a decision to wear a mask or not to wear a mask. People know, right now, what’s the value of a mask,” he said.
However, faith in the general American public may be misplaced. According to the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s own data, only about 32 percent of the US population is regularly wearing masks. In Washington, which has one of the highest mask wearing rates in the country, 57 percent of people are masking. The data suggests that the benefits of face masks are not clear to a large swath of the population.
In an email to Real Change, Public Health – Seattle & King County shared similar sentiments about the benefits of wearing masks, but also legitimized concerns about “perceived negative effects” of masks.
“Although not definitive, many studies have shown face masks in school settings can reduce the spread of COVID-19,” the department said. “At the same time, educators and others have expressed concerns about perceived negative effects of face masks on social and emotional development, and the ability to educate and communicate with students.”
While it appears that for most of the general public, lifting the mask mandate might not have many negative health consequences, for immunocompromised individuals the consequences may be much higher. Students hope that the school district will buck the trend and reinstate the mask mandate to keep immunocompromised community members safe.
With the United States set to cross 1 million COVID-19 deaths in the coming months, the pandemic remains a real danger. To students such as a freshman at the Center School, the stakes of the pandemic are crystal clear.
“I have had to watch my father mourn the death of his closest friends through this pandemic,” the student said. “And every day, by going to school I put him, my mother, my sister and everyone we come into contact with at risk.”
Guy Oron is the staff reporter for Real Change. He handles coverage of our weekly news stories. Find them on Twitter, @GuyOron.
Read more of the Mar. 30-Apr. 5, 2022 issue.