Massachusetts schools and cities are dropping mask mandates. Why are we rushing?

Two young adults smile as they talk while walking across Boylston Street. They have masks lowered around their chins. A handful of other pedestrians are also crossing the street, some in masks. — Passers-by wear masks under their chins as they chat with one another while crossing a street, in Boston, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022. Students and staff at public schools in Massachusetts will no longer be required to wear face coverings while indoors starting Feb. 28. Americans who have been clamoring for an end to mask-wearing have welcomed new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It says healthy people in most areas of the country can safely stop wearing masks. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Callie Crossley hosts Under the Radar with Callie Crossley.

February 28, 2022

Boston’s K-12 students are returning to the classrooms today after school vacation week, officially Mid Winter Break. Mayor Michelle Wu has decided they will have to continue wearing masks at school, even though other school districts are doing away with them, per Gov. Charlie Baker’s recent decision to lift the mask mandate. Doctors and parents are divided about the kids going maskless, but the governor said the significant drop in COVID-19 cases and deaths supported the change, saying, “We have all the tools we need to keep schools safe as we move into dealing with the next phase of managing COVID.”

I wish I felt as confident as he does. But when I consider those kids — returning from weeklong family trips out of town, or staycations at home — all I can think is “superspreader.” How many people have they interacted with? How many of them are still unvaccinated? And how many of the pre-K kids — too young to be vaccinated — are now unsuspecting carriers of the virus or its recent mutation, omicron? The situation reminds me of the sharp spikes in infection rates that occurred right after last year’s holiday travels during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Dropping the mask mandate on the day they return from a week off seems especially risky.

Researchers at the University of Washington have been monitoring the levels of immunity in countries around the world. They say three quarters of Americans are immune; by March they expect the immune numbers will be higher. What is wrong with waiting for that important marker?

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It’s not as though I don’t have COVID fatigue, like millions of other Americans. I do. I seriously can’t believe we’re about to mark two years of the pandemic. Two years of the emotional and physical ups and downs of living with the nagging anxiety about contracting the disease. And worrying about the increased risk of COVID-19 spread from the stubbornly unvaccinated who pose a public health threat. I am vaccinated and boosted, and the number of vaccinated Massachusetts residents is high, though people are still getting breakthrough infections. And hospitals are still full of people struggling to recover from COVID-19 infection. I am all about learning to live with COVID-19, but I don’t understand why we couldn’t start that transition from a position of strength.

We’re moving too quickly. It’s not that I believe kids, or for that matter adults, should be mandated to wear masks forever, but the school mask policy is premature. As is Mayor Michelle Wu’s recent decision to lift the mandate requiring proof of vaccination for restaurants, bars and gyms. I had just enjoyed eating out in restaurants I’d avoided before the mandate. I know the restauranteurs said the vax proof mandate drove away customers, but the restaurants I visited were full. No doubt full of cautious customers like me drawn by the extra precaution.

I’m prepared to be an outlier. Keeping to small circles in which I can feel safer. Masked up with proof of vaccination and rapid tests at the ready, even as everybody else leaves all that behind. And hoping for stronger evidence that we have definitively turned the pandemic corner. I may be swimming upstream against a strong public current, but I’m OK with that. As the African proverb warns, “Do not throw away the oars until the boat reaches the shore.”