A New Jersey school nurse was suspended after she said forcing students to wear masks is not effective at stopping the spread of COVID-19 and is inhumane.
“The masks, unfortunately, don’t prevent them from getting COVID. Because the viruses are so small, it can’t be stopped with a mask,” Stafford Township school district nurse Erin Pein said in a YouTube video posted last week.
Pein, who has also refused to wear a mask on the job, was suspended by the school district after posting the video.
“Unfortunately, it is a personnel matter and I do not have the ability to comment or discuss the matter, nor can I discuss any of the information that Ms. Pein has already chosen to make public,” school board attorney Martin Buckley said in a statement following the suspension.
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Pein made other controversial comments in the video, including calling mandatory masking “child abuse” that will cause “anxiety and depression” by changing how children “learn how to be adults by recognizing faces and facial expressions.”
“Making these kids wear them for six or seven hours a day is awful,” Pein said.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy issued an executive order last year that mandated masks for students returning to the classroom but gave parents the option of remote learning if they do not want their children to wear masks.
Stephanie Silvera, an expert on epidemiology at Montclair State University, said Pein was spreading “misinformation” about masks.
“I’m honestly not sure why this type of misinformation is still circulating more than a year later,” Silvera said.
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Supporters of Pein plan to protest her suspension at the district’s next school board meeting.
