New York City’s new health commissioner sparked outrage after announcing that children aged five and under should wear face masks indefinitely, bucking the national trend of ditching masks and going in the face of vast evidence that kids are at little risk from Covid-19.
‘I think it’s indefinite at this point,’ Dr. Ashwin Vasan said Friday during a COVID-19 briefing in Queens. ‘People who have tried to predict what’s going to happen in the future in this pandemic have repeatedly found egg on their face, as they say, and I’m not going to do that here today.’
The woke commissioner, who lives in Brooklyn with his partner and three children, including a four-year-old son, argued he wanted to mask children because under fives are not vaccinated.
‘As a father of a two-and-a-half-year old-and two other older kids, I want to keep them as safe as possible. I would love nothing more than to send my son to daycare without a mask,’ Vasan said, according to CBS New York.
‘But as a scientist, and as a doctor, and an epidemiologist, I want to keep him safe because he’s not eligible for a vaccine.’
His comments sparked fear and fury among frustrated New York parents who face having to force their young children to keep wearing a mask in the face of mounting evidence that they are at little risk.
It also comes as every state, including California which ended its mandate last week, has lifted or announced plans to lift masking requirements in schools.
The lone holdout is Hawaii, which is dropping its indoor mask mandate on March 26 but expected to extend the requirement for schools.
New York state and city also lifted school mask mandates earlier this month.
Vasan is the latest woke addition to new Mayor Eric Adams’ collection of progressive leaders, among whom include soft-on-crime District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
He has publicly thrown his support behind controversial critical race theory, the Black Lives Matter Movement and even vaccinating children against COVID – and detailed his beliefs on social media.
‘First they came for Critical Race Theory, now they’re coming for mental health and suicide prevention programs when we are literally in the midst of a national children’s mental health emergency? Absurd doesn’t begin to define this logic,’ he tweeted in November 2021.
Adams has appointed Vasan to address the pandemic, but the pair have seemingly opposing viewpoints on COVID related issues after the mayor told a group of angry parents who confronted him Thursday, that he planned to lift the mask mandates for children.
Vasan is the city’s 44th health commissioner, replacing Dr. Dave Chokshi, who recently stepped down from the role.
Friday’s remarks were made during his first-ever COVID press conference and have been met with anger online by many who accused him of ‘torturing children’.
‘It should be us as parents choice if we want our children to wear a mask. Worry about the crime rate in NYC & not our children,’ Kimberly Raimondo stated.
‘Why are we masking the little ones ? That’s child abuse,’ questioned Dawn Doccola.
‘Really pathetic these corrupt pols (sic) just can’t let it go. Already proven to not work and actually makes things worse,’ wrote Dimitrios Skaliotis.
The push to rescind mandates comes amid debate over the BA.2 variant of COVID, a sub-variant of the Omicron.
‘Currently there’s no evidence that BA.2 causes more severe illness, increases risks of hospitalization or that our current vaccines offer less protection against it, but we continue to monitor this,’ Vasan said, according to The New York Daily News.
He added: ‘We are tracking these variants very closely.’
Vasan also said he doesn’t plan to drop the city’s workplace vaccine mandate anytime soon.
However, despite his push for continuing mandates, the woke epidemiologist did note that restrictions are taking a toll on residents and reminded them to prioritize their mental health – a topic the doctor is apparently passionate about.
This is an excerpt from Daily Mail.
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