Virginia 2022: Youngkin, Schools, & Omicron

March 10, 2022

By: Apal Upadhyaya

With the inauguration of Glenn Youngkin as Virginia’s next governor, many raise concerns about his administration’s COVID-19 guidelines in schools with the spread of the Omicron variant. 

When Governor Glenn Youngkin was inaugurated in January, he immediately implemented nine executive orders and two directives. However, the most divisive of the orders was Executive Order 2, otherwise known as EO2. In EO2, obtained from virginia.governor.gov, there are six specific directives listed: 

  • The State Health Commissioner shall terminate Order of Public Health Emergency Order Ten (2021). 
  •  The parents of any child enrolled in an elementary or secondary school or a school based early childcare and educational program may elect for their children not to be subject to any mask mandate in effect at the child’s school or educational program.
  • No parent electing that a mask mandate should not apply to his or her child shall be required to provide a reason or make any certification concerning their child’s health or education. 
  • A child whose parent has elected that he or she is not subject to a mask mandate should not be required to wear a mask under any policy implemented by a teacher, school, school district, the Department of Education, or any other state authority.
  • The Superintendent of Public Instruction shall rescind the Interim Guidance for COVID-19 Prevention in Virginia PreK-12 Schools, issued January 14, 2021, and updated October 14, 2021, and issue new guidance for COVID-19 Prevention consistent with this Order.
  • School districts should marshal any resources available to improve inspection, testing, maintenance, repair, replacement and upgrades of equipment to improve the indoor air quality in school facilities, including mechanical and non-mechanical heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, filtering, purification, fans, control systems and window and door repair.
Students wearing masks while using chromebooks in an LCPS public school. LCPS officially has made masks optional for students, starting February 17th, 2022. Image Credit: LCPS News on Twitter

However, there are inconsistencies in Youngkin’s stance on COVID-19 guidelines as reflected in this executive summary. He acknowledges that the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) recommends masks in schools and that they are important in containing the spread of COVID-19, but goes on to say that children wearing masks incorrectly voids the use of masks in preventing the spread. Continuing, he also states that masks worn by children are often made of cloth, a material the CDC says is less effective in comparison to medical styled masks such as KN95 and N95 masks used by healthcare professionals. While this is true, instead of proposing a plan in getting medical masks for K-12 students to use, Youngkin rescinds this mandate, citing the educational freedom of parents in controlling their children’s use of masks in schools and citing the ineffectiveness of cloth masks. However, rescinding this mandate has the exact opposite effect of what is needed to protect children in Virginia’s thousands of schools. 

According to the study Effectiveness of Face Mask or Respirator Use in Indoor Public Settings for Prevention of SARS-CoV-2 Infection — California, February–December 2021 published via early release by the CDC on February 4th, 2022, found that a cloth mask decreased the odds of testing positive for COVID-19 by 56% in an indoor public setting in comparison to not wearing a mask. The odds of testing positive further decreases with the use of surgical masks and respirators, such as N95 and KN95 mask type, 66% and 83% respectively. 

This study inheritably voids the reasoning used by Governor Youngkin in rescinding mask mandates in Virginia schools. In the Importance of the Issue section of EO2, it states that, “masks worn by children are often ineffective because they are made from cloth material, and they are often not clean, resulting in the collection of impurities, including bacteria and parasites.” 

Governor Glenn Youngkin speaking in the Virginia General Assembly. Youngkin recently signed a law, SB 739, rescinding the mask mandate for Virginia schools, instigating a fight from many Northern Virginia counties. Image Credit: CNN

However, this study concludes that even cloth masks are 56% effective in lowering COVID-19 transmission in indoor public spaces such as classrooms, increasing in the use of masks of a medical grade. Not wearing a mask at all is not the solution to the issue of preventing COVID-19 transmission in schools. A solution to this is making surgical and respirators made for children more widely available in Virginia, mirroring the actions of the Biden Administration’s handout of millions of N95 masks in pharmacies all over the country via an executive order. This would help protect children in schools from COVID-19  and allow more options in mask types widely available. Therefore, Governor Youngkin’s reasoning for this directive in EO2 is false due to guidelines that can be adapted to better protect students in Virginia schools. 

In addition to EO2, the Interim Guidance for COVID-19 Prevention in Virginia PreK-12 Schools (EO2 Guidelines) released by the Virginia Department of Health and Virginia Department of Education sets further guidelines outlined by Youngkin in EO2. One key point in this document is the restatement of parents’ rights over their children’s health and education in schools, similar to the second directive of EO2. This is related to the campaign promise Governor Youngkin made to his constituents: parents’ control of their children’s health and well being. This is a message echoed throughout the guidelines, specifically about the use of masks in schools. 

However, though EO2 Guidelines start off focusing on the topic of parents’ control over their children’s health and well being, the document sets up the use of masks as an important prevention strategy in accordance with existing CDC guidelines. In addition, there is a message of recommending vaccines for children, thus allowing the reduced use of masks. This is seen in the Prevention Strategies section for Parents on page four: 

Implementing prevention strategies to reduce risk associated with COVID-19 is a shared responsibility between parents and families, school officials and staff, and local public health authorities.

Parents:

  • Keeping children home when sick and seeking care and testing as appropriate.
  • Vaccination.
  • Masks.

 

Though, these are just recommendations. Governor Youngkin has emphasized time and time again that he will not put a vaccine mandate in place, emphasizing the importance of choices made by parents for their children yet again. Governor Youngkin’s COVID-19 strategies from EO2 and EO2 Guidelines are divisive, showing the difference in interpretation in strategy against COVID-19 transmission in schools. However, one aspect remains clear: the omicron variant is sure to test these guidelines in the upcoming months. 

 

2/17/2022

LCPS has now made masks optional for students and teachers starting February 17th, 2022, in accordance with EO2 as above.