When Maddalena Cirignotta’s youngest son looks back on his experience as a kindergartener during the COVID-19 pandemic, he can share one particular experience that will be unique among his peers.
For four school days in 2021, he sat in his classroom like the boy in a bubble, placed by administrators behind plexiglass panels.
Cirignotta, a 20-year educator and language specialist who teaches world languages at South Kingstown High School, says she was wary of the negative impacts of masking young children for up to eight hours a day. They develop communication, processing and identifying social cues largely from facial expressions and sounds, she says.
So when Gov. Daniel J. McKee issued an executive order requiring masks in schools, she sent her children without one.
“We are talking about developing children. Asthmatic children had to wear masks. Those with sensory sensitivities,” Cirignotta said. “We forced children with speech delays to wear masks during therapy with a masked therapist. This wreaked havoc on mental health and socialization. It stunted their development.”
According to several studies, long-term mask wearing can foster bacteria, increase heart rates and deplete oxygen levels. One 2019 study of N95 masking in children reported the practice significantly raised blood carbon dioxide concentrations within five minutes.
There was also the psychological impact. Cirignotta says masks made her children more withdrawn and lethargic, often nauseous. They suffered from frequent headaches.
“They developed a fear of being caught with their masks down or wearing them improperly. And like many of their classmates, chose not to speak up when they had questions or were confused about some aspect of the material,” she said. “My son developed a fear of adults. My daughter would hide in the bathroom for fresh air.”
Now the R.I. Department of Health is considering a proposed rule governing masking protocols in schools during future viral outbreaks.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows the risks from coronavirus infections for younger people in Rhode Island were low, even though there was an extremely high percentage among children of “seroprevalence,” a measurement of antibodies in blood that indicates a person’s exposure to the virus.
In a decision in a lawsuit brought by several parents against the state claiming the mask mandate exceeded statutory authority and was a violation of RIDOH’s rule-making procedures, R.I. Superior Court Associate Justice Jeffrey Lanphear wrote that physical and emotional discomfort and reduced interaction with peers and teachers created “irreparable harm to students,” though he concluded that it was “significantly outweighed by the harm caused by the unmasked spread of the disease.”
A January 2024 settlement mandated RIDOH to hold public hearings on its school masking policy.
Dr. Andrew Bostom, a former professor at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School and a witness for the plaintiffs, says the available data never supported Lanphear’s conclusion that the benefits outweighed the harms, namely because a proper cost-benefit analysis was never conducted, as acknowledged by former health director Dr. James McDonald during his deposition.
Bostom says masking students failed to stop the spread.
“Think of the psychological abuse these kids have gone through,” Bostom said.
Bostom said the “gold standard” for “evidence-based medicine” prior to the pandemic was abandoned by state officials, who instead relied on studies that were not peer-reviewed nor used randomized control groups, even one that used mannequins in place of human beings.
In retrospect, many state officials have argued they were faced with a new threat, but Bostom says the coronavirus was anything but novel.
“The data was clear for any objective person to see at the very outset of the pandemic,” he said. “They had all the data they needed from more than a generation of randomized, controlled trials which uniformly demonstrated masks do not prevent influenza infections.”
RIDOH spokesperson Joseph Wendelken said the department will seek public comment on a proposed permanent regulation “that will be in place the next time there’s a need for a school mask mandate and “will be required to publish a statement explaining its rationale.”
The proposal now states that “scientific evidence will be utilized in connection with evaluation” but includes the caveat that “some evidence may be given more weight than other evidence.” RIDOH has held a public hearing on the proposed policy and is expected to release its final rule soon.
“It’s worth noting that in the event of another health crisis, the state still has the right to issue emergency regulations,” Wendelken said.
Cirignotta is keeping close tabs on the proposed RIDOH masking policy.
In the meantime, now that masking mandates have long passed, her children are thriving socially and academically, which she credits to their parents being educators.
“It was like their personalities have come back to life,” she said.
