Free Republic

Parents would be empowered to decide whether their child wears a face covering in school under legislation that moved out of the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday. The bill, sponsored by Republican Sens. Doug Mastriano of Franklin County and Judy Ward of Blair County, would allow for parents to opt their children out of a COVID-19-related public or private school mask order imposed by the state Secretary of Health or the local school board. Republican lawmakers have pushed the bill after Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration issued a mask order for schools which took effect earlier this month. The measure would...

Donoho said she and several other parents had been "talking to the school board about lifting some of these mask requirements since fall of last year." After her son's diagnosis, she helped organize the mask test with the University of Florida lab. The reports from the lab found multiple, "quite dangerous" bacteria samples in the tested masks, among them streptococcus pneumoniae, mycobacterium tuberculosis, staphylococcus aureus, and numerous others. In some cases, the lab technicians pointedly underscored the dangers presented by the bacteria. Noting the presence of neisseria meningitidis in the masks, the technicians wrote that the bacterium "causes meningitis and...

Dr. Anthony Fauci revised his recommendation that Americans wear two masks to further protect themselves from the coronavirus. Fauci spoke about double masking in a video livestream interview with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) on Thursday.

Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all Californians Thursday to wear face coverings while in public or in high-risk settings after the state recorded a single-day high in coronavirus cases. Face coverings are now mandated for residents while at work, on public transportation, in taxis and ride-sharing cars, and inside or in lines to enter all public spaces— including hospitals and pharmacies. “Simply put, we are seeing too many people with faces uncovered – putting at risk the real progress we have made in fighting the disease,” Newsom said in a written statement. “California’s strategy to restart the economy and get people...