NEW YORK — Confusion erupted Friday over whether the city’s youngest children should wear face masks in school, as Mayor Adams vowed to keep a mandate in place for the toddlers despite a court ruling that struck down the requirement as unenforceable.
Last week, Adams vowed to lift the mask rule for kids under 5 this coming Monday as long as infection rates remained low.
But in a briefing at City Hall on Friday afternoon, Adams said he would not follow through with dropping the toddler mandate after all in light of an uptick in COVID-19 infections in the five boroughs driven by the highly contagious BA.2 omicron subvariant of the virus.
“I will continue to say to parents: You should keep your mask on your children,” Adams told reporters.
Just hours earlier, however, Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio rescinded the face covering requirement for kids under 5 with immediate effect, declaring in a ruling that it is “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.”
Back at City Hall, Adams said his administration was already drawing up an appeal asking a higher court to overturn Porzio’s ruling so that the city can require the youngsters to keep their masks on.
It is anyone’s guess when and how a higher jurisdiction may rule on Adams’ appeal, leaving young parents in limbo over the weekend as they ponder whether to send their kids to school with or without masks on Monday.
Asked what his message is to anxious parents, Adams pleaded for patience.
“We are not in control of our judicial system,” he said. “We are going to follow what the judge states.”
Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, who joined Adams’ for the briefing, declined to give a new date for when the administration may again consider scrapping the mask mandate for kids younger than 5, only saying that his team is “reassessing the data every single day.”
Adams’ move infuriated parents who have demanded for weeks that he roll back the toddler requirement.
“We have unvaxxed NBA superstars able to play unmasked at Barclays Center ... yet my 4-year-old has to wear a mask,” Queens resident Daniela Jampel said, referencing Adams’ controversial decision last week to exempt professional athletes and performers from the city’s coronavirus vaccine mandates.
Some studies have shown that kids under 5 are at risk of suffering socially and educationally from mandatory masking, while at the same time being at exceedingly low risk of developing severe symptoms if they catch COVID.
Abe Shampaner, the co-owner of the Learning Tree, a preschool in Queens, said he was dismayed by Adams’ decision to appeal Porzio’s ruling and questioned why the burden of mandatory masking should be placed on the city’s youngest residents.
“The kids are the least susceptible. Our concern is that they’re going to make them wear them indefinitely,” Shampaner said. “What is the point of the mask mandate (for toddlers) when you’re letting everyone go mask free?”
With coronavirus infections on the upswing, Adams and Vasan countered that it’s critical for kids under 5 to keep their masks on since federal regulators still haven’t cleared that age group to be vaccinated.
“We want to keep an eye on this latest uptick to ensure that our youngest New Yorkers remain safe as we see an increase in cases due to the more infectious BA.2 subvariant,” said Vasan, who warned that he expects cases “to continue to rise over the next few weeks.”
According to data from the State Health Department, the city’s average test positivity rate reached 2.01% on Thursday, far lower than where levels were at during January’s omicron peak, but nonetheless a marked case growth as compared to just a few weeks ago.
Other parts of the state have fared way worse from BA.2.
The Central New York region’s average test positivity rate reached an alarming 9.35% on Thursday, the data shows, and some public health experts are warning that the city should brace for the potential of a similar surge. Twelve New Yorkers died from the virus statewide Thursday, the data shows.
Declaring that it’s time to “prepare, not panic,” Adams said that his administration will distribute 6.3 million free at-home tests at 2,500 locations across the city in coming weeks.
He also took aim at Republicans in Congress for their reluctance to pass a $15 billion pandemic spending package aimed at ensuring adequate supplies of testing and vaccine across the U.S.
“The obstructionists in Washington, D.C. don’t really see how important this is,” Adams said.
Adams’ decision to keep the toddler mask mandate in place contrasts with his more laissez-faire attitude toward other public health precautions.
In early March, Adams scrapped the mask mandate for all school students older than 5. Around the same time, he rescinded the vaccine mandate for indoor activities like dining, drinking and exercising — opening the door for unvaccinated people to patronize bars, restaurants and gyms.
Last week, Adams also announced he’s exempting unvaccinated professional athletes and entertainers from the city’s private sector vaccine mandate so that they can play sports games and shows in the Big Apple again — a policy shift that drew intense backlash from across the political spectrum.
Asked at Friday’s briefing how he justifies masking kids under 5 while letting unvaccinated athletes play sports, Adams demurred: “I listen to the advice of my doctors and this is what the doctors told me to do.”
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who for months refrained from directly criticizing the mayor, was among the chorus of critics who blasted his sports-boosting exemption last week, saying that it sent the “wrong” message as cases spike.
On Friday, the speaker announced she had tested positive for COVID — and urged New Yorkers to remember that the pandemic is not over.
“We will eventually overcome this pandemic,” the speaker wrote in the statement, “but in the meantime, I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and continue to take the necessary precautions.”
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