#Politicians and celebs keep ditching masks while kids stuck in them

Depending on how one counts, we are now in day 570 of the COVID crisis. Much has been learned since the old days of washing your groceries and not touching your face. But one thing that we can’t quite seem to land on is when people should be wearing a mask. In some places they are ubiquitous, in others you barely see them. The laws, regulations, guidance and rules seem to vary by the minute.

Take the House of Representatives. Members must wear masks at work in one of the airiest, most spacious buildings in the country, and yet on Wednesday night many of them played a maskless Congressional baseball game and had a visit from a maskless Joe Biden in the tightly packed dugouts.

Speaking of the president, when he does or doesn’t wear a mask is so haphazard these days as to seem almost random. Often we see him inside or out donning the virtue-signaling muzzle, but other times his face is free as a bird’s. A year ago, when and whether Donald Trump was wearing a mask was an essential part of the daily news cycle. Now Uncle Joe just seems to pick or choose based on which cameras are on.

Here in New York City, when Meghan Markle and her husband Prince Harry recently met with local officials, they had masks on for about two seconds while in the atrium of the World Trade Center and then abruptly whisked them off for pictures.

But there is one group of people for whom the mask mandates are strict and severe. That would be our kids. Unlike Biden, they have no choice in when they mask up, it’s all day, every day at school, even if they are vaccinated. And they are far less likely to get seriously ill than our aged president. What in the name of science is going on here?

The fact is that from Day 1, the mask has served two purposes. One as a tool to stop the spread in very specific circumstances. The other is as a symbol of how seriously one takes the virus. That has to stop. Huge, maskless crowds are assembling for all kinds of events across the country, and no super outbreaks are occurring despite the warnings of the Oracle of Fauci. Meanwhile our kids labor under masks every day.

Increasingly it seems like mask mandates are not about efficacy but about compliance. It is one of the restrictions that most or at least many Americans seem kind of OK with. It doesn’t seem like a big deal. But it is a big deal, especially, but not only for kids. If the president and the political class can’t stick to a set of mask rules then why should everyone else?

Throughout the pandemic what Americans have wanted is one set of rules for everyone. With masks and with so much else, that is the one thing that we never seem to get.

David Marcus is the author of “Charade: The Covid Lies That Crushed A Nation.”