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Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced that the state’s mask mandate for public schools will finally end later this month. Lamont’s decision joins a wave of Democratic governors ending mask mandates across the country this week. In fact, currently only six states (California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington) intend to continue mask mandates in schools, marking a readiness to return to normal. Connecticut College should follow suit and relinquish the outdated mask mandate in place.
While most red states have remained absent of mask mandates, many purple and blue states have been leaning into this direction for a while now. With the vast protection offered by the widely available COVID vaccines, significantly reduced severity in the omicron strain, and updated knowledge on which masks do and do not work, the threat posed by COVID has become infinitesimal for those vaccinated, allowing people to access their own risk and make decisions that they believe best suit themselves, not others.
Newly-elected Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia ended the mask mandate through executive order on his first day in office, sparking outbursts from media, pundits, and partisans. In response to controversy regarding Youngkin’s authority to end the mandate through executive order, a bill was drafted in the Virginia state legislature. Not only did ten of the Senate’s 21 Democrats vote in favor of ending the mask mandate, but the bill was co-engineered by state Sen. Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax City).
Democrats adopting a pro-choice position on masking is more common than one may assume. Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis never instituted a mask mandate and resisted calls to implement one during the rise of omicron. Even the presumed Democratic nominee for the Georgia gubernatorial race, Stacey Abrams, posed for pictures with public school students maskless, demonstrating through her own actions that masks are largely unnecessary.
Shifting to a pro-choice mask policy on campus would align Connecticut College with the settings of restaurants, most workplace environments, and now public schools in acknowledging the minimal risk of COVID, especially the omicron strain. David Leonhardt of the New York Times aptly noted, “Children face more risk from car rides than Covid.” College-aged students—especially those who are vaccinated and boosted—are among the least vulnerable demographic for Covid. As Leonhardt emphasizes, “Severe versions of Covid, including long Covid, are extremely rare in children. For them, the virus resembles a typical flu.”
Students at Conn are seemingly familiar with this knowledge. In dorm rooms on campus, it’s common to see students walking maskless in the hallway or in the bathrooms, because they recognize the vanishingly small risk of COVID. Masks are required within the dining hall, yet turn the corner into the vast seating area and you’ll find tables full of maskless students eating shoulder-to-shoulder. COVID does not magically halt transmission when eating, but we have correctly accepted that masks are not needed in this scenario. Why not, out of consistency’s sake, apply this logic to the rest of campus life?
Updated information on mask effectiveness also makes pro-choice masking more suitable for everyone. We now know that cloth masks provide meager protection, while surgical masks are effective at protecting others but not the wearer. N-95 and KN-95 masks, however, are effective at providing protection to its wearer. If a student, staff member, or professor wanted extra protection beyond that of vaccines, they would have the choice to wear an N-95 or KN-95, offering them further protection without inconveniencing others.
As we slowly revert into a post-pandemic era, Connecticut College should have policies that reflect the data and science of COVID and that are consistent with public schools, or even Harris dining hall. Invoking a pro-choice mask policy would allow students at Conn—half of whom have never had an in-person college class without a mask—to revert to normal, while allowing those who wish to take extra precautions to do so. If Gov. Lamont believes K-12 students and their parents should be able to make their own masking decision in classrooms, why shouldn’t college students be offered that same choice?
