As adults ditch their masks, COVID mandates persist for lowest risk groups

New Yorkers no longer have to wear masks on public transit, following growing noncompliance with a state mandate from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. "You do you," a Metropolitan Transit Authority sign informed riders this week. 

People in homeless shelters and jails are also free to bare their faces under the order by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who cited the availability of new "bivalent" boosters for the switch despite no proffered evidence they reduce severe outcomes from COVID.

It's the same old, same old for low-income families in the federal Head Start program, however. Their children 2 and older, who are just learning how to speak, must continue masking despite the Department of Health and Human Services admitting its rules are inconsistent with the CDC's about-face on COVID guidance last month.

New Jersey's largest school district continues imposing masks six months after Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy ended statewide rules. Parent Anna Da Silva told Chalkbeat Newark that she would pull her 6-year-old, who has a "recurring skin infection that's triggered by rubbing from the mask," out of the district if it again denied her medical exemption.

The divergent practices continue a trend from the first round of rescinded mask mandates last year: the lower the risk from COVID, particularly by age, the more likely to be required to mask. 

The rules for college students, once subject to on-campus COVID restrictions evocative of white-collar prisons despite their low risk, can be especially perplexing. Even mask-optional policies can be overridden or undermined by faculty at some universities.

The University of Delaware imposed a two-week return-to-campus mandate scheduled to end Sept. 9. UCLA has seesawed between mandate and optional policies in recent months as the Omicron BA.5 subvariant spread, going back to optional regardless of vaccination status Aug. 15. 

Western University sped in the opposite direction three days later, imposing Canada's strictest COVID campus rules with universal booster and mask mandates, including "medical-grade" masks in classrooms.

Medical alum Matt Strauss challenged Western's claim that "its science experts" were consulted, citing his conversations with "actual medical experts at Western today." The university didn't answer requests for the scientific evidence behind its policy.

Ongoing mandates fly in the face of rigorous scientific research that has shown little if any protective effect from real-world masking, which runs the gamut from porous cloth to expensive N95s that require "fit testing" to work properly. 

Studies purporting to find a meaningful effect are often criticized for poor design, and the CDC has been repeatedly accused of promoting weak mask research.

It's also not clear how much mandates can increase masking. A new survey by college data service Intelligent found 66% of students will voluntarily mask in class this semester, while another 21% would mask "if required."

The University of California Berkeley revised perhaps the strangest mandate viewed by Just the News after a Sept. 1 query. 

The policy, in place since at least Aug. 3, had made indoor masking optional regardless of COVID vaccination status but required masking for those not vaccinated against the flu "during flu season." The flu sentence disappeared from the policy sometime between Sept. 3 and Sept. 6. 

Communications manager Tami Cate said the university was aligning with the city's public health masking guidance, which "has no masking requirement at this time for COVID or flu," and the timing was related to the Sept. 1 UC Office of the President vaccination policy update.

UC Berkeley had mask mandates for students unvaccinated against either COVID or the flu in the prior flu season, she wrote in an email.

Mask-optional Northern Illinois University has authorized faculty since spring semester to set their own rules in class. A physics professor not only requires masks but tells students that not wearing them indoors is a "manifestation of ableism and racism."

A student in PHYS 253, who said Jahred Adelman is the only professor teaching the required course, sent a photo of the slide and syllabus to the Young America's Foundation. 

"Your neighbor may be an immunocompromised cancer survivor," it says in part. "If you think their health and well-being are not important, you do not belong in this class." The university told YAF Adelson is expressing his "personal opinion," and the professor said his syllabus "stands on its own." 

He marked his Twitter account private after YAF noted his history of mask-related tweets, including that he "bragged about filing reports against unmasked individuals on the train" and sometimes "confronted them."

NIU did not answer Just the News queries about whether Adelson can grade students fairly when he equates not masking with racism, and he didn't respond when asked if any official had contacted him about his remarks. 

Adelson's tone recalls that of Ferris State University professor Barry Mehler, suspended for a rambling video that called unvaccinated students "vectors of disease" and said their grades were "randomly assigned." The university paid Mehler $95,000 to settle his lawsuit, and he agreed to retire.

Communications professor Drew Morton, whose Texas A&M University Texarkana does not explicitly let faculty override its mask-optional policy, combined a carrot with social pressure to get his students to wear masks in class. 

Campus Reform obtained his film history syllabus, which offers 15% extra credit classwide if everyone "properly wears a surgical grade mask" throughout the semester. "If 19 out of 20 students do it? There will be no extra credit." The final and midterm each account for 20% of the grade in the class.

University Communications Manager John Bunch told Just the News the syllabus was a "draft version" from a previous term when the TAMU system "allowed for the incentivizing of wearing facial coverings in class." Morton gave it to students this term who were asking for information about the class.

"Dr. Morton subsequently removed the mask/bonus point information from his syllabus before the first day of classes this semester, as it was no longer supported in the updated policy," Bunch wrote in an email. "Dr. Morton reached out to his students via email to advise them of the change when it was made."