Schools free to CARRY ON making students wear masks after Supreme Court of Texas rejects Gov. Greg Abbott's bid to scrap mandates

Highest court rejected Abbott's request for an intervention on legal technicality
Governor is sure to continue his battle against local school officials over masks
He is leading the anti-mask charge along with Florida Gov. Ron De Santis
Local officials want kids to wear masks amid rising cases of the Delta variant
This despite little evidence to support the efficacy of masks among children

Published: 14:44 BST, 20 August 2021 | Updated: 15:10 BST, 20 August 2021

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Schools are free to carry on forcing children to wear masks after the Supreme Court of Texas rejected Governor Greg Abbott's latest bid to scrap local mandates.

The court rejected Abbott's request for an intervention after several counties defied his emergency ban on masking kids.

But Abbott was refused on the grounds of a legal technicality - it must first be appealed in a lower court - meaning he is almost certain to challenge the ruling.

Abbott, who tested positive for the virus on Tuesday, is leading the anti-mask charge along with his Republican colleague, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

School boards and local officials are wary of rapidly increasing Covid infections in Texas, arguing that masks are needed for children too young to take the vaccine.

It comes despite the virus posing almost zero risk to kids, as well as evidence which shows that masks inhibit learning in children and cause psychological harms.

But the local officials are emboldened in their stance by President Joe Biden who has warned he's 'very concerned' about states like Texas defying masks.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been leading the anti-mask charge alongside his Republican colleague Florida Governor Ron DeSantis

Kids going into class with masks on for their first day back at school in Richardson, Texas, Tuesday

Making kids wear masks in school stunts language skills and exacerbates anxiety, report to Irish government finds

Making children wear masks in the classroom can stunt language skills and exacerbate anxiety, according to a health report commissioned by the Irish government.

The Health Information and Quality Authority's report published in March informed Dublin's decision not to mandate masks for children in elementary schools.

The HIQA paper noted that transmission of Covid was low in schools and that young children found it difficult to wear face coverings properly.

The scientists also gave evidence that masks had adverse psychological impacts, including causing anxiety and inhibiting the development of communication skills.

The report found that since the pandemic started 'the extent of transmission between children or onwards to households by children, has been low.'

It said that while masks for adults were associated with lower transmission of Covid-19, the data showed a reduction in mask efficacy among children 'which may, in part, be due to reduced ability to comply with face mask wearing.'

Furthermore, the paper went on to add that 'there is concern regarding the potential harms associated with face mask use, for example, anxiety or negative impacts on the development of communication and language skills, particularly for younger children.'

In Britain, school children under the age of 12 have never been required to wear masks during the pandemic, neither at school nor anywhere else.

Public Health England's medical adviser Dr Susan Hopkins said in March: 'The consensus view is to not advise schoolchildren at primary school age [12 and under] to wear face coverings.

'This is for two reasons: firstly they can have difficulty wearing them and keeping them on all day, and the second part of that is that it's really important that they can see facial expressions in order to develop their communications and language skills.'

The mask mandate for British secondary schools was dropped at the end of May.

Coronavirus infections in Texas rose by around 40 per cent in the last two weeks, with experts blaming the more infectious Delta variant.

The state saw an average of around 11,000 cases per day at the start of the month, with that figure rising to 16,050 by Thursday.

Abbott's battle with the school officials comes amid similar political face-offs across the southern states, which are seeing some of the highest rates of infection.

Several states across the U.S. have announced the change in plans on masking due to the resurgence of COVID-19 cases in the country and the announcement of new guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that requires fully vaccinated individuals to wear masks.

However, a few Republican states clashed with local officials who are resisting their orders banning school mask mandates, to which, Biden reacted by saying on August 12 that wearing masks is not about politics but about keeping children safe.

On August 18, Florida's Miami-Dade County School Board had imposed a mask mandate for the district's 360,000 students, as well as staff from Monday, defying the Governor Ron DeSantis' rule of banning local mask mandates.

Biden said he's looking into whether he's able to intervene in states like Texas, which have been outspoken and defiant against mask mandates.

'My concerns are deep and – I'm very concerned. And we all know why,' Biden said when asked during a press conference about some red state governors preventing compulsory mask wearing.

Biden said he doesn't believe his office was the power to intervene, but 'we are checking that.'

The mask debate has been a lighting rod for controversy throughout the country that appears to be split along political lines.

Democrats tend to agree with the mask mandate; while Republicans believe it should be a choice and have called mandates 'anti-freedom.'

Texas and Florida - led by Republican governors - have been leading the anti-mask charge.

On Monday, Florida Governor DeSantis even threatened to withhold salaries from school superintendents or board members who ignore his executive order banning compulsory face masks for students.

Meanwhile leaders in Democrat-led states and cities have moved swiftly to impose COVID-19 mask and vaccine requirements in the face of the Delta variant, including California, Illinois, Kentucky and New Jersey.

In Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee has mandated vaccines for all school workers, including bus drivers and janitors.

In 2021, 4,736 people in Alabama have been confirmed dead from the virus and a total of 11,914 since the pandemic began in March 2020. In the US, more than 624,000 people have been died COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic

As of Thursday, 649,741 people in Alabama have tested positive for the virus of the over 37 million nationwide and while there has been a significant recent uptick due to the Indian 'Delta' variant, cases have been down in the state for the past few days.

'This will be a condition of employment,' Inslee said at a press conference Wednesday.

The United States' seven-day average of coronavirus cases stands at 143,792 as of Thursday.

That's an increase of 44 per cent on two weeks ago.

This comes as the effort to increase vaccinations in America continues, in addition to the encouragement for some to get a third shot of the vaccine.

In Alabama, the Governor has blamed the unvaccinated for rising coronavirus hospitalisations.

The southern state reported 2,723 Covid hospitalisations as of Tuesday - just shy of the record of 3,084 virus patients set on January 11.

Much like in other states, benefits have been offered to those in Alabama willing to get vaccinated, including a car dealer who offered $100,000 in prizes

Republican Governor Kay Ivey has said that 'it's time to start blaming' the unvaccinated' for the continued spread of the virus.

'It's the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down,' she added.

U.S. health officials Wednesday announced plans to dispense booster shots to all Americans to shore up their protection amid the surging delta variant and signs that the vaccines’ effectiveness is slipping.

Biden has recently put various public employees under vaccine mandates, including federal workers, military members and nurses.

The president has also praised businesses who mandate vaccines for their own workers and encouraged others to follow, as well as highlighting local vaccine mandates as a condition for daily activities, like indoor dining.