Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra defended a policy requiring 2-year-olds to wear masks as a condition to participate in a low-income financial assistance program.
The policy prompted criticism due to the low proportion of COVID-19 deaths among the youngest members of society.
Opponents of masking children have also noted that such requirements can have substantial detrimental effects on children’s social and intellectual development. A crucial aspect of human social development involves seeing and learning to interpret social cues from facial expressions. Masks diminish the clarity of such cues, leading to fears that children raised in the midst of the pandemic will have developmental and social issues for years to come.
Nevertheless, when pressed on the value of the mask mandate by Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.), Becerra defended it.
“Mr. Secretary, did forcing 2-year-olds to wear masks save lives?” Kiley asked.
“Making sure people were masked when it was appropriate was essential to making sure we were able to get out of this pandemic,” Becerra responded.
“Can you point to any evidence that there was a public health benefit to forcing young children to wear masks?” Kiley pressed Becerra.
“Well the fact that today we are not losing lives the way we lost them when we first got into this pandemic,” Becerra responded.
Kiley interjected, again asking if the mask requirement on children as young as two saved lives.
Opposition
Republicans long sought a repeal of the policy, which required children as well as staffers at Head Start facilities to wear masks and be vaccinated.In April 2022, Reps. David Joyce (R-Ohio) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), the latter of whom has a degree in medicine, put forward a resolution to end the mandate.
“The federal government should not be using taxpayer dollars to force children as young as two years old to wear face masks,” Joyce said at the time. “If parents or individual Head Start programs want to mask themselves or their kids, they have every right to do so.
“But the federal government should not insert itself into that decision-making process, especially when children are the least at risk for COVID-19 but the most likely to suffer developmental setbacks from prolonged masking.”
“Our students have been negatively impacted by school closures and remote learning, especially in low-income and rural communities. Loss of learning, lack of socialization, and increased rates of depression and suicide show just how much our students have suffered,” Meeks-Miller echoed.
Hendrix ruled that the mandate was illegal because “(1) no permissible construction of the Head Start Act could authorize the rule; (2) HHS failed to follow proper rulemaking procedures; and (3) the rule is arbitrary and capricious.”
In his memorandum announcing an end to the mandate, Becerra nevertheless contended that his agency’s mandate was founded in an “evidence-based COVID-19 mitigation policy.”
Becerra himself was alleged to have been dismissive of concerns that children were being sent to criminal and cartel-affiliated sponsors, telling officials during a leaked phone call that children should be moved across the border into the interior “like a Ford assembly line.”
Republicans are currently considering legislation that would seek to address the wide-ranging uses of regulatory authority dubbed the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act, or REINS Act.
That bill would require any regulation stemming from the executive branch with a substantial impact on the economy to be approved by Congress.
While Becerra’s masking rule likely would not have applied for congressional scrutiny under the terms of the REINS Act, the issue of executive rule-making and its effects on society has been a topic of keen interest for the GOP majority in the House.