Jean Matua “From the Heart”
As Kimball’s largest employer, it is the job of the Kimball School Board to protect its employees, as well as its students and buildings.Every two years, we elect board members to represent our interests in this government entity charged with making decisions for the district.
All “critical sector businesses” in the State of Minnesota were required by the end of June 2020 to create operational plans related to COVID-19 scenarios. Schools and other government businesses are at the top of that “critical” list, as they should be.
Yet, when the Kimball School Board met last week in a special meeting to consider a COVID-19 mitigation plan (an action plan for what to do when infection numbers reach specified levels, in order to keep staff and students – and ultimately the community – safe), a dozen members of the community came to the meeting to demand that they not create a plan. There were another 22 connected to the meeting via Zoom, although only one spoke (in favor of masking and other mitigation measures, and against bullying of those who choose to wear a mask).
One by one, several of the dozen people present in the audience at the board meeting read impassioned demands to not mask their children; they essentially told the board that their information was better than that from the Minnesota Department of Health, Department of Education, and thousands of career public health professionals.
False fact #1: Masks don’t work. I don’t know about you, but I want my surgeon to wear a mask. My dentist and hygienist wear masks. As the board meeting last week was ending, Minnesota’s top public health official Jan Malcolm was on the news stating that schools where students wear masks will experience a 3-and-a-half times reduced rate of COVID-19 spread. Masks were mandated in 1918-19 with the pandemic of Influenza; even the rudimentary masks they had 100+ years ago were effective.
False fact #2: The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is so infinitesimally small that no mask can filter it out. The flaw in that argument is that viruses are not self-propelled; they do not move without help. Viruses are spread on droplets when someone coughs, sneezes, or speaks. Remember the saying, “Say it, don’t spray it?” Without a mask, you are constantly spraying whatever is in your respiratory system, and sharing it with others. A cough will send droplet aerosols as far as 12 feet away within seconds, and the aerosols linger in the air for up to 3 minutes. This is a higher risk of transmission than surfaces which can easily be sanitized and washed off of hands. Any face covering can block most of these droplets, virus and all. For best protection, both the cough-er and the cough-ee should wear aerosol–filtering masks.
False fact #3: Children can’t transmit COVID-19 to adults. While it is true that the rate of transmission from elementary-age students to adults is low when mitigation strategies are in place, this is dependent on masking, sanitizing, and distancing being in practice. You can’t take away the protections and expect the transmission rate to remain low; it just can’t work that way.
The request (some will have heard it as a demand) made of the board last week was to not make a plan, to just wing it as COVID-19 infection numbers rise. This would be incredibly foolish. Both Stearns and Meeker Counties are among the lowest in Minnesota for vaccination rates and highest in COVID-19 rates; we can’t count on enough of our neighbors being vaccinated to protect the community.
False fact #4: Children’s immune systems are being harmed by being kept from exposure to COVID-19. The argument was made last week to just let kids get sick. Avoidance of pathogen (the things that make you sick) exposure does not weaken your immune system, and neither does fighting off disease strengthen it. A child’s immune system is not mature until about age 7 or 8.
To be clear, mitigation actions against COVID-19 are not all about masking, and the school board is considering a whole array of mitigation measures. Wearing of masks is one of several factors that work in concert to protect our staff and students, and their family members when they return home from school. Distancing, hand-washing, surface sanitizing, staying home when sick, avoiding large crowds (especially indoors, especially unmasked); these are all mitigation strategies that work best when implemented together with masking.
Furthermore, schools are not necessarily the prime source of COVID-19 infections. Community transmission is the most likely source of most COVID-19 infection, especially in communities that refuse to mitigate its spread (low vaccination rates, low masking rates, congregating in large groups, etc.)
Anyone who watches the news has seen scenes of school board meetings across the country where members of the public get out of hand. Even Saturday Night Live parodied this phenomenon two weeks ago. Screaming matches, fist fights, sometimes with police intervention. School board members are threatened – even with death – by members of the public with varied stakes in the boards’ decisions. Across the country, scores of school board members are resigning their elected positions because of the “toxic” and politicized environment of meetings today.
Sadly, school board meetings are not the only location of such conflicts. Three weeks ago, a store clerk was shot dead for asking someone to follow store policy and wear a mask. People have been duct-taped to their seats on airplanes for violently resisting the common courtesy (and federal requirement) of wearing a mask. I am appalled and embarrassed for humankind that it’s come to this.
Our federal and state governments have left it up to each individual school district to make appropriate plans to keep its students and staff safe. Each community carries varied risks and circumstances. Just as your business probably has a plan in place to deal with COVID-19, our school district needs a carefully thought-out plan as well – before infection levels escalate, and before it becomes a public health emergency.
At the end of last week’s meeting, a motion was made to accept the mitigation plan proposed; it failed on vote of 3-2 and the issue was tabled until this week’s meeting. The Kimball School Board regular meeting is this week, Wednesday night at 6 p.m. They will again discuss the mitigation plan and – I certainly hope – agree on a plan of action for when COVID-19 rates rise. I’m usually an optimist but, given the percentage of individuals in the area who choose not to cooperate for the health of the general community, I am concerned.
When reviewing the facts on which such decisions are made, one must always consider the source. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has more than 1,700 highly trained scientists who have devoted their careers to the study and prevention of disease. A random Facebook post or YouTube video, even if touted by someone you know, cannot be nearly as careful, and would not stand up to scientific scrutiny. We have thousands of people taking malaria drugs or horse dewormers, drinking hand sanitizer, and spraying their bodies with bleach because of such dangerous misinformation.
Consider this: If we were facing a pandemic of leprosy (now known as Hansen’s disease), with high infection numbers in the community, would you allow your children or employees unlimited exposure to this disease and its potential carriers? I would hope not. And yet the Delta variant of COVID-19, which makes up 99% of cases in the U.S. today, is far more contagious, debilitating, and potentially lethal. (It is actually hard to catch leprosy, and it is now completely curable.)
School boards across the country are trying to avoid distance learning and all the problems that can cause both educationally and socially. We should all welcome and support anything that works toward that end. They deserve our respect and cooperation as they tangle with such difficult decisions where it’s impossible to make everyone happy. Their job is to keep us safe, not to make us happy. And mob rule is not how our democracy works.