Gotta Do

Community spread of COVID is increasing in our area, and so I have returned to wearing a mask in school. 

It was just ahead of a likely pitched battle with the newly-elected governor that our district implemented a three-tiered mask policy. When numbers are low, masks are optional, when they are medium, masks are recommended, and when they are high, masks are required for staff. Since we are going to be living with COVID for the unforeseeable future, such a policy makes sense to me, and so after a year of masking, I removed mine when the data indicated it was safe to do so. 

At school, kids were more hesitant. Proportionately? They have been wearing masks for a pretty large part of their lives, and removing them seemed strange. They also looked to their peers, and not many kids were unmasking. The same was true for my colleagues: the vast majority of them continued to wear masks at school. 

And at first, when I pulled the elastic straps of my light gray K94 mask over my ears yesterday and greeted the kids returning from spring break, no one even noticed. "Why are you wearing your mask again?" a student asked at lunchtime.

"The numbers are up in our area," I said. 

"They are?" he replied with some alarm. "I'm going to start wearing mine again, too."