According to American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, schoolchildren should be forced to keep wearing masks until there is zero transmission of COVID in schools.
Teachers’ Union Boss Randi Weingarten says she will only support unmasking kids when there is ZERO COVID transmission. pic.twitter.com/MNk2dBwdzJ
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 8, 2022
As part of her rambling, incoherent answer, Weingarten also said that “it’s not teachers transmitting to kids — it’s more kids and kids.” That’s not even true, but it barely matters. Her position on forcing children to wear masks eight hours a day is nonsensical. And it is not just a misguided demand but a deliberately and obstinately anti-scientific attempt to flex muscles that her union no longer has. She is trying to test her organization’s post-pandemic political power.
For the good of the nation, I hope it is already zero. The fact that Democratic governors are panicking and dropping mask mandates for adults gives me hope.
It has long been clear that zero transmission among the general population is an impossible dream. Especially with the new and more infectious omicron variant, every single person in America and probably in the world is going to get the coronavirus, one way or another. Efforts to mitigate the spread, at this point, are really just about slowing down the pace at which it spreads so that the hospital system is not overwhelmed with new patients. It is no longer on the cards to protect people from the coronavirus who do not live in deliberate physical isolation.
Nearly every state and jurisdiction has at least gotten to the point where adults do not need masks for ordinary activities. It stands to reason that this should also be the case in schools, where the spread of the coronavirus is less likely. The virus poses no serious threat to young children, who are far less likely to contract it or to spread it anyway. Indeed, an unvaccinated child is safer from the coronavirus than a vaccinated and boosted 40-year-old, according to the data. And this means that masks are even less necessary and less useful for preventing the spread of the coronavirus in schools than they are anywhere else.
Despite this, teachers unions believe that they can continue to scare people with the prospect of infection. For the sake of what at this point can only be considered superstition, they would force children to spend seven or eight hours a day wearing masks, even as Democratic governors in the bluest states begin to relax mask mandates on everyone else.
I really, really hope that the COVID pandemic breaks the teachers unions for good. No one deserves it more. They were ruining public education long before the pandemic, but their conduct over the last two years has really been the last straw. The recent 3% decline in the public school population and the doubling of homeschool families is no doubt the result of teachers unions’ diligent efforts to avoid working for a living. And future momentum in the public charter school movement will likely result from what Weingarten is doing right now.
Weingarten keeps pushing her luck in the belief that she wields some kind of clout or power. I believe that in the future, teachers unions are going to become less and less relevant. Thank goodness for that — your children will be better off as a consequence.
