VA Governor Youngkin’s Decision on Children

The new Governor of Virginia has issued a statement with regards to education. Gov. Youngkin plans to give parents more control over the coronavirus emergency to include consideration for vaccinations, natural immunity, and what he called adverse mental and physical effects in children.

He justified signing his executive order as providing parents with choices to opt out of mask mandates with regards to their children, and assuming that the parents knew best in terms of what is best for their children.

He also justified the mask mandate, citing expert suggestion that masks hide visual cues, hinder emotion recognition and reduce students’ abilities to hear teachers clearly. That being said, if teachers are required to wear masks but the students are not, the administration has not explained how this mandate would specifically impact the students’ hearing ability.

Youngkin administration then proudly announced that Virginia’s parents had enough of government dictating how they should raise children, and that the current administration was more willing to listen.