The decision of whether or not to wear masks has become a hot-button political issue when, in reality, it should be nothing more than a public health issue. With the polio vaccine, people didn’t bat an eye at getting vaccinated, so what’s the difference with COVID-19? The problem is that it’s becoming politicized, as people fear that their freedoms are being taken away. Those that are making it political claim that it is a personal liberty, but our liberties only last until our choices put others at risk. Public health is the top priority and with countless evidence of masks effectiveness, it just makes sense to mandate them in schools.
We can see the effectiveness of masks by our own example; we mandate masks at Trinity Prep and our case numbers are far less when compared to public schools. Whether or not masks are mandated in public schools should still matter to us as students and as citizens of Florida. Our community is putting children and their families at risk by not mandating masks. There are many ways we can make a difference in the fight for mask mandates. We need to find ways to appeal to our local government, like through petitions, as well as to the people in our community through word of mouth and activism on social media. It’s important to stop the spread of misinformation and emphasize just how unsafe it is to go without a mask.
Masks are still necessary in many situations. As shown in studies done by the CDC, masks prevent your respiratory droplets from reaching others, which is one of the main ways that COVID-19 spreads. Mass outbreaks of COVID-19 are still occurring. Because of these reasons, we still need masks in school, as we spend lots of time indoors and are less than six feet away from others.
“The new variants are far more infectious, particularly to young people, so masks are absolutely essential in a school setting,” science teacher Scottie Smith said. “The children are too close together to avoid mass outbreaks of COVID.”
Despite the scientific evidence, this argument has become politicized because people want to argue that they have liberties that protect their choice to wear a mask. We have many other restrictions on our personal liberties for the sake of others. It’s the same reason that we can’t yell “fire” in a theatre; we would be putting others at risk. If we can do something to make others around us safer, why wouldn’t we? The government is not trying to strip us of our freedoms; they are trying to protect us.
Florida is a major hot spot for this debate because rising case numbers are being met with incompetence from our political representatives. Governor DeSantis issued an executive order in late July “ensuring parents’ freedom to choose” between whether or not their children wear a mask.
Liberties under the Constitution do not include the right of individuals to make decisions that can endanger others. Facilitating the transmission of a highly contagious and lethal virus is an act of harm we are consciously taking against others. For this reason, parents shouldn’t be deciding whether or not to have their children wear masks. Parents are required by Florida to vaccinate their children against things such as Hepatitis B and tetanus. The choice of whether or not to mandate masks should be up to the federal government because it makes sense to mandate things for the greater good of the population.
“While many people refuse to wear masks on a basis of liberty, what they fail, I think, to conceptualize is that gratifying their own liberty in that regard is actually putting the freedoms of others at risk,” social science teacher Brandon Burmeister said. “When you refuse to wear a mask, you’re limiting the options of other people to do what they want to do, live how they want to live, and to have the types of freedoms that they want to have.”
