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PARKERSBURG -- The Wood County Schools Board of Education meeting Tuesday was the scene of some passionate exchanges concerning mask mandates in schools.
The board voted to end the mandates by a 3-2 vote, with members Justin Raber, Rick Olcott and Debbie Hendershot voting to approve the changes. Board members Ron Tice and Judy Johnson voted against ending the mandates.
Twelve speakers let their feelings about the mandates be known, on both sides of the issue, with some demanding to have a choice of whether to wear masks, and asking some of those vulnerable to COVID-19 to be fully vaccinated and wear masks.
West Virginia House of Delegates member Roger Conley (R-Wood County), said, "I'm currently a lead sponsor on a bill that would permanently remove mask mandates permanently."
Conley added, "There's other representatives that have similar bills that's working through the process right now."
"I think it's a fundamental freedom issue," Conley said. "I totally agree -- that if you want to wear a mask, you should do so. If you want to get vaccinated, you should. But that's our individual rights. We should not let another governor, another health department, or another school board tell us what we can and cannot do."
Savannah Delozier, who also addressed the board, said, "I am against the mask requirement for the children. My main reason being the numbers. This board is meant to help the academic education but we are ignoring the numbers and the data that show that this virus is not affecting children."
She said she worries for the adults, everyone who wants to wear a mask and to be vaccinated and a booster shot should be able to do so. In addition, she said she wants to have a choice for her children on whether they should wear a mask or be vaccinated.
Speaking on the other side of the issue, Tina Richardson cited rates for people who tested positively at 26 percent, and the vaccination rate at only 57 percent.
Richardson said, "Yes, it (COVID-19) does affect children. The CDC is still recommending that masks stay in place. It would be wise to continue following those guidelines until our numbers go down."
West Virginia has been gold in the County Alert System since Feb. 3, mid-range in the spectrum from green to red.
Tice said, "The reason I voted against it was it did not have any step-down."
Tice said a step-down would allow a mandate to be reinstated at a particular school, meaning that school would have that mandate if people test positive, but other schools would not have to if they don't have positive tests.
It would be in an individual school, not system-wide.
"I just felt that eliminating the mask mandate without any kind of step-down would be unwise if the numbers would happen to go back up and we wouldn't have any way to control it," Tice said.
Johnson, who also voted against lifting the mandate said, "I feel that the number of positive cases has decreased because of the amount of snow days for our school system. I felt that we needed more time to ensure that the number of cases were decreasing."
She also said, "research has proven that when everyone is masked, it is safe."
Johnson said the research she is referring to came from the British Medical Journal, and a story appeared in The Guardian Nov. 17, 2021, about this research, showing that mask-wearing was linked to a 53 percent fall in the number of positive cases.
She also cited another story from the University of California – San Francisco's website, published June 26, 2020, and updated July 11, and yet another story in Health Affairs, dated June 16, 2020, about how mask mandates work in slowing down the spread of the virus.
Johnson also said, "One person in a positive case in a classroom could affect 25 or more people."
Hendershot declined to comment and a message for Raber had not been returned by deadline Wednesday.
Larry Launstein Jr. can be reached at llaunstein@newsandsentinel.com