Frustrated New York City parents plan to file a lawsuit Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court seeking to overturn the mask mandate for children under five -- among the only Covid restrictions NYC Mayor Eric Adams didn't lift last week.
Adams confirmed last Wednesday that the United States' most populous city would remove its mandates requiring masks for public school children aged five and over and proof of vaccination to dine out or enter entertainment venues.
But Adams decided to keep the mandate in place for children under 5, despite little risk of serious Covid infection, because they are ineligible for vaccination. A Change.org petition demanding an end to the rule has garnered 4,516 signatures as of Monday morning, with parents demanding an end to the 'damaging' mandate.
About a dozen parents from throughout the five boroughs will also argue in court that the city must pass a law justifying the need to continue requiring such a 'harmful' mandate, the New York Daily News reported.
'These aren't just dress-code policies that have no impact on someone's life. For many of us, this is something we find harmful for our children. We want to have the choice whether to do it or not,' the group's attorney, Michael Chessa, told the news outlet.
'If the Department of Health sees fit to put these into place, then they have to bring them to the City Council and the City Council has to say, "OK, we're going to pass these city laws," ' added Chessa, a former Brooklyn assistant district attorney.
About a dozen New York City parents will file a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court today seeking to overturn the mask mandate forcing children under 5 to continue wearing face coverings. Above, a three-year-old girl is wearing her mask as mandated, while her seven-year-old sister is free to go without one. ‘Given the apparent lack of effectiveness of the vaccine in 2- to 5-year-olds in the Pfizer trials, plus the fact it seems that very few young children are affected severely by Covid, it feels unnecessary to keep them in masks in a learning setting,’ their mother told DailyMail.com
'These aren't just dress-code policies that have no impact on someone's life. For many of us, this is something we find harmful for our children. We want to have the choice whether to do it or not,' the group's attorney, Michael Chessa, told the New York Daily News
The parents plan to argue in court that the city must pass a law justifying the need to continue the mandate for children under five. Above, students don their masks in a classroom in NYC
And many parents from across the city seem to agree.
‘Given the apparent lack of effectiveness of the vaccine in 2- to 5-year-olds in the Pfizer trials, plus the fact it seems that very few young children are affected severely by Covid, it feels unnecessary to keep them in masks in a learning setting,’ one NYC mother, who declined to be named, told DailyMail.com.
‘These are formative years of their lives. For children who need to see speech, and try and understand emotions, and then learn to communicate themselves, having half their faces covered when the dangers of Covid do feel more manageable doesn’t quite stack up,’ she added.
The mother's two children (pictured above) are directly impacted by the new mandate, as her three-year-old daughter must continue wearing a mask, while her seven-year-old sister is free to go without one.
A Change.org petition demanding an end to the rule has garnered 4,516 signatures as of Monday morning.
It contains a letter addressed to New York Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T Bassett, and links to articles which purport to back up the petitions' point.
The authors write: 'The national conversation around mandatory masking is now shifting to acknowledge the development, mental and social detriments these policies are causing children right now.
'In fact, the World Health Organization has never recommended masks for children under 5 years old and only limited circumstances for children under 11.
'We ask you to join surrounding states and end mandatory masking in schools and daycares now. ALL children but especially those with speech delays, learning disabilities, social anxieties, sensory issues and on the spectrum deserve better.'
The letter adds: 'There are now growing calls for children to learn with optional masking, as there is no clear evidence to show that masking children indefinitely has curbed this pandemic and kept schools “safe.”'
'With most adults now vaccinated, our state of New York boasts an 84.3% completed vaccination series, the time is now to advocate for children who remain naturally protected against severe illness and death from COVID-19.'
A Change.org petition presented in the form of a letter to NY's health commissioner is calling for an end to masking for children aged four and under at preschools, nurseries and daycares
Mayor Eric Adams confirmed last Wednesday that the United States' most populous city would remove its mandates requiring masks for public school children aged five and proof of vaccination to dine out or enter entertainment venues
The petition references the WHO's guidelines for mask-wearing, which say that children under five 'should not wear masks for a long duration or without supervision.'
The petition also includes hundreds of comments from concerned parents and others explaining their reason for signing, with many calling the mandates 'child abuse.'
‘I’m a NYC mom with 2 little girls in pre-k and they want the option to go to school without feeling constricted by a mask!’ wrote local parent Eileen Moran.
Masks are doing more harm than good for children under 5, especially. Socially and cognitively, these young children need to learn social cues, watch mouth movement to learn to speak – they are the least likely to get and transmit Covid and the least likely to die/be hospitalized from Covid. Do better,’ signer Christine Good wrote as her reason for signing.
Nancy McAuliffe, another signatory, wrote that she is a preschool teacher and educational director who has seen ‘the serious negative’ impact of young children being forced to wear masks.
‘I have students whose social-emotional development and speech development have been severely impacted. At this point, I think we need to reassess the damage being done to this age group vs the extremely low risk their non-mask wearing poses,’ she wrote.
Rebecca Frost, who signed the petition as well, wrote: 'Our toddlers have lived most of their life in this pandemic. We know they are low risk (the lowest out of literally every age group) for serious illness, yet we are forcing them to suffer and possibly stunt their development with masks.'
'Let's follow the lead of other countries in stopping this nonsense! I want my baby to be able to connect with other children and caregivers,' she added.
Chessa, who has a three-year-old daughter and 15-year-old boy in public schools, said that he and the parents joining the lawsuit are not against wearing masks.
'Nothing I am doing is anti-mask. All I am doing is pro-choice. I am just pushing this so that parents have the choice to do what they want,' he told the New York Daily News.
Mayor Adams' change in mask policy came last week just as the infection rate in the city plummeted to 671 cases a day. The numbers represent an 11.6% drop from the week before, with just 1.8% of all tests now coming back positive. The school positivity rate is 0.18%, Adams said Friday.
The decision to force children under five to continue wearing masks comes even though just 307 children aged between zero and four have died of COVID in the whole of the U.S. since the pandemic began in spring 2020, according to the latest CDC data.
Speaking on Spectrum News NY1 this morning, Adams said that parents of children under five "need to trust me.'
'We are going to get there. We will lose the masks. We're gonna see if there's any spike in K-12, then we'll come back for the babies."
Adams did not elaborate how long the mandate would last for children under five or what specific infection rate among children five and older he is looking for in order to justify removing masks for all.
Mayor Adams' change in mask policy came last week, as the rate of public school students testing positive for Covid hit 0.18%, Adams said Friday. Above, a mother in a mask walked her two masked children to school in Manhattan
Instead, he defended his decision and recalled being pressed on the issue by parents and children at the Queens St. Patrick’s Day Parade over the weekend.
‘I told them, you’re going to be taking off your mask like your big brothers and sisters are doing now. When you have big brothers and sisters, sometimes they do things first to make sure it’s safe for you,’ he said.
‘And those children, they understand it because they trust their parents and they trust their leadership. They’re not tainted like adults,’ he said.
‘They still feel that we have to make the right decisions for them. And I’m with the parents, I want those masks off. I said it in January, but I have to do it right to make sure our city protects its children and we don’t close down the city again,’ Adams added.
One NYC mom, Daniela Jampel, 38, of Washington Heights in Manhattan, told DailyMail.com the new mask policy flies in the face of common sense and will create a series of 'mini-police states' and a culture of 'petty tyrants.'
Jampel, who has been outspoken about keeping schools open during the pandemic because of the lower threat that the virus poses to kids, said that she caught wind of the mayor's pediatric mask mandate earlier in the week.
'I was outraged, I was so disappointed, I was really flummoxed at how the only place that you have to mask is in their day care Pre-K or Three-K classrooms, it makes no sense,' she said.
Jampel said that it makes her question the Adams' judgement, after he was elected on the back of promises to be a more moderate Democrat mayor than his predecessor Bill de Blasio.
'I thought we were getting a more moderate politician, someone who is more common sense and pragmatic approach to the city. Someone who wanted to open the city back up,' she said. 'Masking kids who are under five years old and no one else? It's certainly not a turn-the-page-on-COVID politician.’
Daniela Jampel, pictured here with her family, called on parents in New York City to reach out to Mayor Eric Adams to express their outrage about the requirements that kids under 5 continue to wear masks
Jampel says that kids don't remember the days when masks weren't worn in school. 'We've normalized something that is not normal'
Nationwide, pandemic restrictions that have been in place for nearly two years are lifting. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised Friday that only 10 percent of the country -- those living in 'high' Covid risk areas -- need to wear masks indoors in public settings.
Chicago and San Francisco authorities are also dropping pandemic restrictions.
'Two years ago we became the epicenter for the virus and two months ago we became the epicenter again for the Omicron,' NYC Mayor Adams said last Friday.
'Two years of pain, two years of heartbreak, of uncertainty, of business loss, of schools closing, of just conflict inside our households, but I said from since the time I was elected I said that this virus was not going to define us, we're going to define ourselves,' he added.
Adams cautioned that while the COVID-19 pandemic isn't over, he said that he was confident that it is now safe to send children over five years old back to school unmasked.
'We want to see the faces of our children. We want to see their smiles,' the mayor said, adding that parents with kids over the age of five could still send their children to school with face coverings if they wished.
The first-term Democrat mayor last weekend said he would lift the mandates if infections and hospitalizations continued a downward trend.
He stressed that the mandates could be re-imposed if a new variant emerges that, like omicron, poses a special danger.
'If we see a rise in cases or hospitalizes, we are going to come back,' Adams said.
He also credited former Mayor Bill de Blasio for saving lives by shutting down schools and businesses in the city, despite the political fallout he received.
'I want to thank the former mayor, Bill [de Blasio], who took a lot of criticism,' Adams said. 'He made some tough calls to put in place mandates. New Yorkers, you know how we are, if you told us to go right we want to go left just because you told us too.’
Despite the city's reputation for obstinance, Adams said that New York business were 90% in compliance with restrictions pandemic restrictions that were placed on them, including limited hours, restricted capacity for stores, worker safety protocols and other regulations. Those restrictions officially ended today.
'Folks can come in and enjoy this great city without showing proof of vaccination,' Adams said. 'Our restaurants, our businesses and our concert venues will no longer require patrons to provide this proof. It's time to reopen our city and get the economy back on track'
New York City Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi credited the city's vaccination push for the allowing the city to break free of Covid-19.
'Vaccines have saved so many lives,' he said. 'And prevented an immense amount of suffering and pain. New York City's nation-leading vaccination policies, while sometimes controversial, were demonstrably effective.'
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