Posted on 02/03/2022 12:48:53 PM PST by lightman
Even as nations around the world are easing their pandemic restrictions, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) on Jan. 28 adopted a permanent school mask mandate.
Since returning to in-person instruction last year, Oregon students have been required to wear masks at school except for removing them briefly when eating or during outdoor sports. That requirement was temporary, though, and expired after 180 days. The state adopted the “permanent” mandate in place of that temporary measure.
Masks will now be required in school settings until the rules are repealed.
As for when that might be, Oregon education officials say it depends on the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The virus sets the timeline,” wrote the Oregon Department of Education’s Ready Schools, Safe Learners Resilience Manager Kati Moseley in a message to superintendents and school leaders on Jan. 28.
“OHA can rescind the masking requirements if it believes the rule or parts of the rule are no longer necessary to control COVID-19,” wrote OHA officials in response to concerns about what metrics might trigger a repeal.
Any person who violates the proposed rule will be subject to civil penalties of up to a $500 fine per day per violation.
The OHA action was taken despite vehement opposition expressed by more than 350 people during virtual hearings last week.
“Not one person in the hearings supported making the mandate permanent,” Lane County Commissioner Jay Bozievich told The Epoch Times.
The Alsea School District in rural western Oregon is refusing to comply.
Effective Jan. 31, it made mask-wearing optional—giving parents and teachers the freedom to decide whether a child should wear a mask except on school buses.
OHA responded by threatening to withhold pandemic relief funds for the district that serves about 1,000 students in K-12. And in a letter obtained by The Epoch Times, the Oregon Department of Education threatened the licensure of teachers and the accreditation of School District Superintendent Marc Thielman.
But Thielman says he is just following the science.
“OHA said that masking is effective at slowing the spread of Omicron when all the scientific studies say that it’s not,” Thielman told The Epoch Times. “When Samaritan Health Services in Oregon said that cloth and paper masks are no longer allowed in their facilities because of their low efficacy, we believed them. They’re the experts.”
In a Jan. 31 letter to Oregon Department of Education Director Colt Gill, Thielman explained that even the packaging that paper masks arrived in featured a disclaimer stating “Not Effective Against Viruses.”
He also said that his district was recently closed due to a COVID-19 outbreak that spread while everyone was still wearing masks at school.
“Given the harm that long-term masking does to our students, which has been acknowledged by the CDC, and the groundswell of scientific evidence and peer-reviewed studies about the efficacy of paper masks at controlling this virus, I believe that masks should be optional,” Thielman stated.
“Our School Board agreed and unanimously said we’re going to allow parents and teachers to decide whether they want a child to be masked, not OHA who doesn’t know that child,” he said.
Although health experts now believe that the masks that provide the best protection against Omicron are N95 or KN95 masks, “kids won’t wear them and you can’t teach with them on,” Thielman said.
One other district in Oregon, the Adrian School District, previously lifted mask mandates despite the state rules.
After being handed four violations and a fine of more than $11,000, the district was forced back into compliance.
But Thielman, a Republican candidate for governor, says his district will not back down.
“They might withhold $275,000, but that’s a fraction of our budget,” he explained. “We knew they might do this, but we’ve made a lot of revenue over the past two years, so we’re fine,”
He said that enrollment has skyrocketed as the district continued to offer in-person instruction through the pandemic.
Thielman said a few parents have objected to the district’s change in policy and one student has been pulled from school.
“But we have a waiting list of 75 students,” he said.
Also pushing back against the mandate are members of the Oregon Moms Union (OMU), a grassroots political action committee comprised mostly of moms representing school districts around the state.
“There were several hours of testimony and thousands and thousands of emails sent by parents, asking them not to make this rule permanent,” MacKensey Pulliam, co-founder of OMU and wife of Republican candidate for governor Stan Pulliam wrote on the group’s Facebook page.
”I think a lot of parents just feel really unheard right now,” she said.
Within 24 hours of the permanent mask mandate announcement, members of OMU had sent more than 1,100 public comments to OHA, according to a statement by the group’s Facebook administrator.
One wonders why folks are leaving Oregon.
/s
So if the fatality rate falls to like 1% say, they'd know it was time to repeal it? Oh wait....
But when they set down in a free state they think they’re still allowed to vote tyrant. We should build walls around the tyrant states to keep the contamination contained. If they can survive with what they voted for, or even thrive, great! In the meantime, they’re not infecting the free states. (Obviously doesn’t apply to those in those states that didn’t vote that way in the first place)
Oregon.
I met a boy from Oregon once on a greyhound bus.
He lived in Sweet Hone.
I am not surprised that it is a liberal enclave.
Yes Master I will do whatever you say - even if it endangers my child
I have an uncle that’s thinking of moving here. Florida’s getting too crowded.
Drawing criticism? It should be drawing CROWDS...with pitchforks and torches!
There cannot be an Exit Ramp for this insanity. The masks came in from the fraud. Fraudci stated clearly that “masks don’t work.” His “science” was modified to instill fear and control in to people’s lives. The paranoia cannot end now because it has been a 24/7 propaganda campaign. Mindless toads will keep their faces covered in to eternity because we will always have viruses. The bad part is they want to force your children in to their insane world.
Your uncle is crazy, unless he’s headed for Grants Pass area or out east.
Masks are:
1) a sign of submission, subversion and subjugation
2) mandated in order to dehumanize
3) virtue signaling devices
4) meant to provide constant reinforcement of fear
5) used to destroy community, friends and family normal communication
6) implemented to create isolation, confusion, anxiety, destroy human connectivity, trust and interactions
7) mandated to exacerbate illness
8) intended to aid in the abandonment of the belief and reliance on our immune systems
9) intended to refute integrous science
10) signal to positions of power that you are willing to give up all of your rights and freedoms based on anything they say, even if it is a BIG FAT LIE!
Bureaucrats are always always always cowards. Without exception. And also bullies since the two go together. They are the masters of using govt power to wreck people’s lives while pretending that it has nothing to do with themselves. If there is one single ill covid case in the entire State, they will keep the mandate in.
Govt does nothing. People in the govt do things. No one is forced to wreck lives. They do it willingly. And often with pleasure.
If you would like more information about what’s happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me. Please send me your name by FReepmail if you want to be on this list.
Meh. He lived here once, way back when. Family is here. I used to live in Florida. It was a special kind of stupid, in its own right.
What happened to “follow the science”?
Since western Oregon is in an earthquake zone, they should require all students to wear helmets and carry a survival packs. Then they can look just like Japanese school kids.
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