Connecticut Moms Use Social Media to Ignite Nationwide Opposition to School Mask Mandates

Every afternoon when they arrive home from kindergarten, Emma Burnett’s twin five-year-old daughters complain about how difficult it was to breathe in their masks all day.

Burnett, like many moms in Connecticut, was very Covid-19 conscious at first, accepting the state restrictions as a necessary evil to combat the spread of an ominous disease.

But as the Delta wave came and went in the fall of 2021, vaccine uptake soared, and scientific data supporting school masking started to dwindle, all while the teachers’ unions continued to insist that kids had to cover their faces for their individual and collective safety, something didn’t sit right with Burnett and other moms.

Given the countervailing evidence, the long-held consensus that masking in K-12 protects children and the community from the virus started to unravel, prompting many parents across the country to ask their Democratic-controlled states and school districts the same question: “Why haven’t you adjusted the rules in response?”