Speaking Up for Masks

 After our never-ending COVID quarantine experience, I started to think how this would affect our school year. Back when numbers were low, most officials agreed masks could come off or be optional, including schools. Of course people always forget about the kids and the fact that they don’t have the option to be vaccinated yet. 

Our district announced prematurely that masks would be optional for school. Well, the Delta variant doesn’t care what you think and has come back full force and has a good amount of us worried. 

We still don’t know if our girls had COVID. Their antibody tests came back negative but my PCP told me those tests are not accurate at all. This whole pandemic is full of uncertainty. 

A group of parents organized ourselves to speak up for a masking mandate at our elementary schools (re: unvaccinated) at an emergency School Board meeting. 

And yes, kids may be fine if they contract the virus. But my child can’t wear a mask well due to her disabilities and features. So I’m being asked to toss my child into the deep end where other families don’t want to mask at school. No mask = quarantine. Mask = no quarantine. You see where I’m going? If Hannah is constantly exposed at school, her education is fractured and she’s already delayed as is. Not to mention the disruption quarantining is for working parents. 

We’ve seen countless states open up schools only to immediately mask up or go virtual after a week or two because so many students are infected.

So I got my speech ready and presented my case to our School Board. The meeting went on for four hours. It was standing room only and heated - mainly from parents who didn’t want their kids masked. 

Looking back now, it’s interesting how much of us “Pro Masking” parents used the words “we/us/our” and the “Parent Choice” parents used the words “me/my/I.” 

Our School Board voted 4-1 to mandate masks in the elementary schools. The 1 man who voted “No” is trying to save his voter base and spot on the Board for re-election  :: eyeball ::

The Board will revisit the subject every month to reassess. 

Even though our group “won,” we didn’t feel good - the amount of hate and vitriol from parents is absurd. One Board member asked for a police escort to her car, Board members have had threats against them and their families. Over wanting to keep kids in the classroom.

Advocating is hard work. 

COVID Ruins Everything

We went into this summer optimistic and feeling a little safer. Tim and I are fully vaccinated, infections had gone down. We signed the girls up for Summer Camp - finally some socializing! I was unhappy about the administration taking away any mask mandate, but we were willing to take the risk with summer camp since numbers were down. 

We had started hearing about the Delta variant in July and on a Wednesday, July 14th, Hannah had a really bad cold; stuffy, minor cough, a little snot. A typical Hannah cold. Tim also started getting a sore throat. When the weekend hit, Nora had a barky cough that moved to a wet cough. On Monday I woke up with a raging sore throat. Tim went into what seemed like a normal sinus infection for him. I was sniffly and congested. Then on Thursday, July 22nd I felt like I was hit by a bus of fatigue. I couldn't sit up. This fatigue was like nothing I’d had before and came out of the blue. I was thankfully WFH and thought “Geez, maybe I should get a COVID test?”

I found an Urgent Care with rapid tests. After waiting for 15 minutes after my swab, the doctor on call stood in the corner of the room and immediately asked if I was vaccinated. “Yes?” Her face fell and she tossed her papers in the air with a look of defeat: “I don’t know what to do anymore.” My test was positive. I left in shock then anger and called Tim and my Mom sobbing and angry. We have been doing everything to be a team player this entire pandemic and now we were infected. 

Tim tested hours after me and was also positive - all his symptoms had resided. 

We were quarantined for 10 days after our first symptoms. The next day we got the girls both rapid and PCR tests - both came back negative which baffled us. Was their viral load less b.c they were younger? Had we waited too long to test them? 

Unfortunately, because they tested negative, the girls’ quarantine of 10 days didn’t start until mine was over. The county health dept assumes that they can still catch it from me on my last day of quarantine. Our poor girls were home for 17 days. 

We had to cancel a large friend’s camping trip, a concert night, I had to cancel a Mom’s Night Out. It truly ruined the end of our summer. 

They went back to their summer camp on Monday August 9th. On Tuesday Aug 10th I got a call from Summer Camp that Hannah’s aide had tested positive and to come pick her up and quarantine her for another 10 days. 

I lost my shit. I screamed and cried and was inconsolable for an hour. My child needs socialization and it keeps getting yanked from her. Is this how school was going to go if she can’t wear a mask well? Just a constant stream of exposure quarantines that completely disrupt her education and our work days? (This will be a story for another time)

Hannah showed no signs and thankfully tested negative - this got her out of quarantine in 7 days instead of 10 and she was able to start on the 1st day of school. 

Hannah has been in quarantine for 24 days in the past month. We are tired of being home.