Geneva pediatrician supports Pritzker in waiting to lift school mask mandate

A Geneva pediatrician believes that Gov. JB Pritzker is making the right call in waiting to lift the mask mandate that he imposed on school districts last August as a way to control the spread of COVID-19.

“The best public health strategy for the COVID virus spread is universal masking and vaccination,” said Dr. Srisudha Reddy-Gundala, a pediatrician at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital. “My concern is being in an indoor setting in a school without masks and without enough vaccinated children, the risk will be higher again. These kids have done so well with in-person learning since August. We don’t want to go back to e-learning.”

She is worried about the risk that lifting the mask mandate would pose to kids who are immunocompromised.

“That would be really detrimental to those children who want to stay healthy and do in-person learning,” Reddy-Gundala said. “Also, it’s a risk for the teachers and staff who could have immunocompromised health conditions.”

As far as whether masks can impact their development, she pointed to studies that show they “are not affecting focusing or learning or the academic performance in these children.”

“It’s not affecting their emotional development or socialization either,” Reddy-Gundala said.

On Wednesday, Pritzker announced that the statewide indoor mask mandate in Illinois will be lifted Feb. 28, except in schools. The American Academy of Pediatrics endorses mask wearing as a safe and effective way to protect children and adolescents.

“Schools are unlike most other environments — there are far lower vaccination rates for school-aged children than adults, higher exposure daily to younger children who aren’t yet vaccine-eligible, and more difficulty maintaining distance in hallways and gyms,” Pritzker said. “The equation for schools just looks different right now than it does for the general population. Schools need more time – for community infection rates to drop, for our youngest learners to become vaccine eligible, and for more parents to get their kids vaccinated.”

Geneva and St. Charles school districts have made masks optional following a downstate judge’s ruling on Friday to temporarily restrain the district from enforcing Pritzker’s COVID-19 mask and vaccine mandates.

St. Charles and Geneva school districts were among more than 140 school districts around the state named in a lawsuit designed to prevent the school districts from being able to require masks and vaccine mandates. In filing the lawsuit, parents argued there was no due process in Illinois’ statewide mask order.

Both districts are appealing the temporary restraining order. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is also appealing the ruling.

Some school districts not named in the lawsuit, such as Batavia and Kaneland school districts, are keeping the mask mandate in place. Reddy-Gundala believes that the school mask mandate shouldn’t be lifted until at least the weather gets warmer.

“If they could wait for a few more weeks, hopefully the weather will be better and we could have better ventilation by being able to open up windows,” she said. “And if the kids can spend more time outdoors, that could be better.”