Placer County’s reckless COVID politics threatens health and safety of Roseville students
Thirty-one children, age 17 or younger, have died in California due to COVID. If you’re a parent or educator, how could you not be terrified? Astoundingly, parents within the Roseville Joint Union High School District seem more concerned with political ideologies than the highly contagious delta variant, which is running rampant.
Recent guidance from the California Department of Public Health requires that all public school students wear masks while indoors. RJUHSD is abiding by this requirement — students who refuse to wear face coverings will be placed in independent study. Yet vocal district parents are prioritizing politics about individual freedom at the expense of student health. This is occurring during the reign of the delta variant, which we still don’t fully understand.
The sole masked parent who spoke at the Aug. 12 RJUHSD school board meeting advocating for strict enforcement of mask guidance was booed by fellow attendees. She was booed for advocating for her child’s health and safety.
Placer County traditionally leans conservative — a slim majority of voters, 52%, voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 election. This is the county where a coalition of restaurants sued Gov. Gavin Newsom over health requirements. This is also the county where a restaurant owner was called a “traitor” for abiding by state COVID guidance.
An increasingly vocal and mobilized group of anti-science extremists seems to drown out those of us in the area who believe in science and logic. Activist group Moms 4 Liberty Placer County has protested at school board meetings and outside Placer County government buildings, holding signs that perpetuate debunked COVID myths like “masks reduce oxygen intake by 5%-20%” (no, they don’t) and “wearing masks can cause hypoxia infections” (wrong again).
An estimated 1,000 people, including health care workers and Sacramento County Supervisor Sue Frost, attended a recent protest against vaccine mandates outside Kaiser Permanente in Roseville.
And then there’s Roseville’s Dr. Michael Huang, who said he’s signed an estimated 100 mask exemption forms for elementary school students around the county. Oh, and did we mention that the now infamous Destiny Church is offering religious exemption forms for vaccine mandates?
In the meantime, two children under the age of 2 were hospitalized for COVID in Placer County last month, according to Placer County Health and Human Services spokesperson Katie Combs Prichard. According to a Kaiser spokesperson, COVID cases in Northern California have tripled over the past four weeks.
Yet any mention of public health rules triggers an irrational reaction from the adults in the room.
Joel Manfredi, an English teacher and head baseball coach at Woodcreek High School who tweeted out a graphic comparing vaccine requirements to World War II-era Germany, spoke at a recent RJUHSD school board meeting, promoting COVID, vaccine and mask conspiracies.
“The CDC inflated its positive COVID numbers by 1,600 percent,” Manfredi said, adding that there have been 12,000 deaths from the vaccine, that 99% of COVID deaths were individuals with pre-existing conditions and that the CDC has studies that show masks aren’t effective at protecting against COVID.
“The information I provided at the board meeting is from research that is widely available to anyone who wishes to look,” Manfredi said via email.
There is no legitimate proof that any of Manfredi’s claims are true.
A high school teacher who openly and confidently doubts science is a political reality in Placer County. And it’s not just Manfredi. Heidi Hall and Pete Constant, the two newest members of the RJUHSD school board, have been the most outspoken champions for so-called individual freedoms.
Constant and Hall are both aligned with Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin, and have publicly posted their support of his campaign in the recall election. Hall spoke at a recent Kiley campaign event at William Jessup University, telling the crowd to “vote Kiley.”
“Given our respective backgrounds, it’s not surprising that Kevin and I agree on issues of local control — especially in regards to school boards,” Constant wrote via email. “My positions on policy issues that come before the Roseville Joint Union High School District are my own.”
Constant recently wrote to The Bee to voice his support for Destiny Church, Rocklin’s homophobic megachurch whose pastor defied COVID guidelines for months and encouraged constituents to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“Destiny Church and its congregation are great assets to our community,” Constant wrote.
Hall, who has compared COVID restrictions to the Holocaust, seems to be the most strident opponent of science-based guidelines that save lives if they are followed.
“I have a packet of studies that show that children wearing masks isn’t safe,” Hall said at the Aug. 12 school board meeting, blatantly ignoring findings showing masks are safe and effective for kids. “There’s no science at all that says adults can choose to mask, but students cannot. At what point do we demand the state show us the science? Because we know there isn’t any.”
Hall’s passionately misguided speech was met with not only roaring cheers from the crowd but also standing ovations from some parents and community members. That’s the kind of popular extremism we’re dealing with in Placer County.
Meanwhile, two children have already died in Fresno, and one has died in Tulare. Six children have died in Los Angeles County. Science tells us that people get infected when they are unvaccinated and unmasked. Despite this, a sizable number of kids in Placer County have anti-vax or anti-mask parents — and educators. The people who are supposed to be responsible for these children are actively demanding policies that defy even the most basic health and safety measures.
It would be tragic if Placer County kids got sick or died because the adults in their lives declared war on science.