Most liberal parts of the country have finally started to drop COVID-19 restrictions again, but there remains one subset of the population that is expected to live by a stricter set of rules. And that group just so happens to be the only one incapable of putting up a fight: children.
Over the past few weeks, New York, California, Washington, D.C., Illinois, and other Democratic-controlled jurisdictions agreed to ease mask and vaccine restrictions for most indoor venues. But schools are one of the only exceptions. While adults can now go out to the bars maskless in Washington, young children whose academic and social development depends on being able to see and understand facial expressions, and whose health is least at risk just by virtue of their age, must wear masks for hours on end.
Mayor Muriel Bowser defended the decision not to ease school masking requirements by pointing to the Food and Drug Administration’s delayed authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine for children under 5. But children 5 years or younger don’t need that vaccine anyway. In fact, multiple studies show that unvaccinated young children are much safer from the coronavirus than fully vaccinated and boosted adults. So why are leftist officials pretending otherwise?
The answer is simple: Forcing children to mask up allows Democrats to claim they care about stopping the virus, regardless of whether masking children is actually effective. (It’s not.) And because children have no choice but to comply with what the adults in charge tell them to do, officials think they can get by without facing any real consequences.
But Democrats have forgotten about another voter bloc, one that has been given the right and the responsibility to speak on behalf of their children: parents. And those parents won’t forget about the city officials who decided to restrict the lives of children disproportionately just to make themselves feel better.
