The Examiner U-46 News Feed

U-46 mandates mask use as new school year looms

By Seth Hancock
  Mask mandates are back for all School District U-46 students in the 2021-2022 school year.
  The announcement came from Superintendent Tony Sanders in a July 27 message to staff, effectively a week after stating masks would be “strongly encouraged” but optional at secondary schools at a July 19 Board of Education meeting. Sanders already planned forced compliance of masks on elementary students.
  However, Sanders said on July 19 that it was “contingent” on what he was told to do by state and federal agencies, and he cited new Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidance in his July 27 message.
  “Today the CDC updated their guidance to recommend indoor masking for all teachers, staff and visitors regardless of vaccination status,” Sanders wrote. “The Illinois Department of Public Health quickly issued a statement that they will adopt the latest recommendations of the CDC.”
  “Effective immediately, I am reinstituting the requirement that masks be worn in all schools and departments by employees, students, and visitors – regardless of vaccination status – within all U-46 buildings. As a reminder, school bus drivers and passengers have been required to wear a mask (unless the driver is alone) since the last guidance of July 9,” Sanders added.
  This comes as the CDC has pushed conjecture about the delta variant. Of note, the CDC announced on July 21 that it was removing the Emergency Use Authorization status on Dec. 31 for the PCR tests, which has been the standard test used to diagnose COVID-19, because it cannot differentiate between “SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses” which makes COVID-19 data unreliable.
  A large group of parents, filling two overflow rooms, attended the July 19 board meeting opposing the mandates. One parent, Andrew Bucaro, read directly from a box of medical masks which clearly stated the masks do not protect against viruses.
  Another parent, Kori Duncan, raised a study from the University of Florida of masks worn by children at school which found 11 dangerous pathogens on the masks. The Examiner found 42 peer-reviewed studies showing masks to be ineffective including one from the CDC in May 2020 that said there’s “limited evidence for their effectiveness.”