“What looks so strong, so delicate…”

District Medical Committee Unanimously Recommends Mandatory Masking for all Individuals in District Buildings

The Waunakee Community School District Medical Ad Hoc Committee, appointed by the 2020-21 Board of Education (disclosure – I voted in favor of the creation of this committee), strongly advised that the Waunakee Board of Education reverse the Board’s decision in June to allow optional masking within the district buildings.

“Everyone has an opinion, but not all opinions matter the same.”

Dr. Jeff Pothof

Notable was the committee’s implicit acknowledgment that the district’s steps in 2020-21 were methodical, appropriate, and allowed for the maximal number of students to attend school in person. It should be noted that Waunakee was the first district to return K-4 students to in person classes (September 2020) and was one of the leading districts in returning all students to full in-person classes in early Spring 2021. However, the strength of the district’s conduct last year could easily “come undone” through mistaken actions during a spike in the delta variant of SARS-COV-2.

Public comments at the start of the the meeting began with Dr. Meghan Durst, a pediatrician and parent of two children attending elementary school in the school district. Dr. Grace organized and provided a letter to the Board signed by 50 local health care providers and scientists in favor of mandatory masking.

Ms. Ashley Taylor, a district employee, Waunakee Teachers Association representative, and parent of two children in the school district implored the board to continue to acknowledge that they are not experts and to follow the recommendation of the actual experts in disease mitigation and infectious diseases.

[It appeared that no district staff or Board member in attendance was masked, despite Dane County Public Health recommending that all individuals, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks when indoors around non-family members.]

Dr. Jeffrey Pothof then presented a comprehensive report on the medical advisors’ unanimous recommendation for the district to re-institute mandatory masking for all individuals in the WCSD buildings until further changes and recommendations are made.

Dr. Pothof noted that masking will prevent the loss of education. Noting that “Fact #1 – Masks Work.” “Any idea that masks don’t work… we need to get that out of our heads. They really do.”

Dr. Pothof disabused the group of the notion that “natural immunity” alone is useful to consider, as “we need to think about our responsibility to the community.” Notably, multisystem inflammatory syndrome, long-haul covid, and the further mutation of the virus were cited as reasons to continue to maintain mitigation strategies.

Further, Dr. Pothof directly noted that “Everyone has an opinion, but not all opinions matter the same.” then noting the strong recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatricians (a group of 67,000 doctors across the US), the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society, and Dane County-Madison Public Health. All organizations were united in continuing to recommend mandatory masking in schools.

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, Dr. Pothof noted that strong considerations other than child safety argue in favor of mandatory masking, namely that students in a masked cohort could be educationally advantaged over non-masked cohorts, as unmasked cohorts would be at a substantially greater risk of mandatory quarantines due to covid exposure, while masked students would not. Thus, children who are exposed (in school) to a covid carrier in a mask-optional classroom would be more likely to suffer from educational disruption, especially in light of the district’s decision to effectively end the operation of much of the remote learning capabilities from the 2020-21 school year. Further, mandating masks “decreases the burden of quarantine on staff, students and families.”

In short, mandatory masking is an effective tool at mitigating viral spread, prevents quarantines from disrupting in-person education, and was the unanimous recommendation of the district’s medical ad hoc committee.

Dr. Ranum noted that he had previously recommended making masking optional, and to his credit, acknowledged why his recommendation changed, specifically due to the delta variant and the onset of new data which was previously unavailable in June.

Dr. Wald noted that “it would be not good judgment” to not follow the “congruence” of recommendations by virtually all expert organizations. In particular, she noted that the efficacy of masks is a demonstrable and important part of what the district can and should use. “It’s an annoyance, but it’s not lethal. It’s just an inconvenience.” Further, she noted that non-covid viruses have spiked in the last month, including Respiratory syncytial virus, which she has never seen in August. In short, she continued by stating “I dont see how you can present an argument against masking.” In response to BOE member Brian Hoefer’s question about how to respond to questions of living through other viruses, Dr. Wald noted that people are going to continue to die, specifically stating that “It is such a sadness that we have within our capability completely ending what we’re experiencing now. Between the combination of vaccines and masks, we could have no covid. It’s up to us.”