February 8th, 2022 by WCBC Radio

In a letter to the State Superintendent of Schools and the State Board of Education, House Republicans today called for an end to the masking mandate in Maryland's schools. 

Citing data on the ineffectiveness of cloth masks in preventing the spread of COVID-19 as well as the CDC's admission that the more effective KN95 and R95 masks were not designed for and have not been widely tested on children, the letter contends that the risk to children's emotional and cognitive development is being sacrificed for a mitigation measure that is doing much more harm than good.

"The damage that covering faces does to the development of children is something that we will not fully grasp for many years to come. However, there are early indications that masking negatively impacts cognitive development as well as emotional wellbeing – neither of which should be sacrificed for a mitigation measure that provides no true health benefit for those children. The House Republican Caucus requests that the Maryland Board of Education immediately rescind the policy requiring face coverings of all students in public schools, including the elimination or modification of all three of the “off-ramps.” The guidelines are not grounded in science, and they are causing untold damage to our children’s cognitive development and their emotional wellbeing."