Las Vegas elementary school children scream with JOY when told they can finally remove their masks

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A classroom of excited Las Vegas elementary school students were caught on camera jumping with joy after their teacher told them the mask mandate had been lifted.

‘Starting tomorrow, we don’t have to wear masks anymore,’ the teacher said Thursday as she was met with roaring screams and applause from her young pupils. 

The teacher claimed one of her students was so ecstatic by the move that he was ‘about to throw his chair out the window.’

In the Clark County School District, which includes Las Vegas, students have been masked since they returned to the classroom in August 2021 after an entire academic year of remote learning. The district began bringing kids back to the classroom in waves in spring 2021, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported, but didn’t return from full remote instruction until the fall. Online learning was still available to any student who wanted it.

Nevada became the latest blue state to drop indoor mask mandates amid plummeting coronavirus infection levels. Daily cases in the U.S. are down 40 percent over the past week, from 356,722 per day to 207,539. Every one of the 50 U.S. states is recording a decline in cases over the past two weeks, with 44 states’ cases slashed in half over the last fortnight. 

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former chief of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and current board member at Pfizer, told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Friday that it’s time for governors to lift controversial school mask mandates and return schools back to normal.

‘I don’t think it’s imprudent that governors lean forward, anticipating that conditions are going to continue to improve, recognizing that people are frayed,’ he said. ‘We have a narrow window of opportunity to restore some sense of normalcy to the schools.’ 

However, despite the decline in case positivity and push from health experts, President Joe Biden continues to argue that it’s probably ‘premature’ to lift indoor mask mandates.

‘I’ve committed that I would follow the science as put forward by the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and federal people and I think it’s probably premature, but it’s, you know, it’s a tough call,’ the president said during a Thursday interview with NBC News.

Masks in schools have been the most controversial of all pandemic-related policies, with parents are saying the restriction hurts kids’ ability to socialize, and that forcing children to wear a face covering all day in class is uncomfortable.  

Parents and students nationwide are continuing to rally against the mask mandates and urge legislators to lift restrictions, including in New York and Illinois, states that will have mandated face coverings in schools. In addition to protesting, some activists have filed lawsuits against their local and state officials, deeming the mandates are illegal and harmful to children.

Governor Steve Sisolak of Nevada lifted his statewide mask mandate Thursday after outlining how the number of hospitalizations had dropped from the state’s peak.

‘Given all of these updates, and the tools that we now have, now is the appropriate time for me to announce that Nevada will rescind mask mandates effective immediately,’ he told news conference conducted via Zoom. ‘Masks will no longer be required in public places.’

However, he added that people would still be required to wear masks in certain places, such as health care facilities. 

Sisolak’s decision came after a slew of blue states in the northeast on Wednesday chose to drop masks in schools. 

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, whose state made the choice alongside New Jersey, Delaware and Massachusetts, told Squawk Box on Thursday that it was a joint decision.

‘We worked on this together as Governors throughout the region. We thought this is a good time,’ Lamont said.

Meanwhile, neighboring New York – along with California and Illinois – are lifting indoor masking requirements, but extending the requirement for schools, a move that has outraged parents and students.   

Hundreds of parents assembled across New York state on Friday demanding Gov. Kathy Hochul lift her ‘hypocritical’ mandate requiring children to be masked in schools, especially since children face little risk from the virus, with the CDC reporting that minors make up less than 0.1 percent of U.S. COVID deaths. 

Dozens assembled outside City Hall in New York City, carrying signs that read ‘unmask our parents’ and ‘our children, our choice.’

Outside the Westchester County Courthouse, parents and their children gathered, holding signs that demanded the governor be removed from office.

Hochul said she will review the school order – which has prompted outrage among students, parents and politicians – next month after students return to the classroom following their upcoming midwinter break.   

In the Chicago suburbs, a group of teens led a maskless walk-in at their Naperville high school on Friday after they were ‘unlawfully kicked out of school’ on Tuesday for refusing to wear a mask.

Will Wysoglad, 18; his brother Aiden Wysoglad, 16, and their two friends – Rocco Romita, 17, and Alex Orloff, 16 – led approximately 50 unmasked students into Neuqua Valley High School Friday morning. 

The teens, who are technically allowed to attend school maskless because an Illinois judge issued a temporary restraining order on Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s mandate, marched into the school building as parents stood outside protesting and holding signs.

‘We all walked in and there was a bunch of students calling us names,’ Will Wysoglad told DailyMail.com.   

He said they were permitted to attend their first period class, prompting the picketing parents to leave the premise, but then were ultimately told the leave school.

‘Once all the parents left we were taken out of class by our deans and sent home once again for the fourth day in a row,’ the 18-year-old said, noting they are receiving unexcused absences. 

The boys, speaking with DailyMail.com earlier this week, said several nearby districts in the Chicago suburbs are mask-optional. Neighboring states also do not have mandatory mask mandates in effect. 

‘We don’t have a problem with people wearing masks,’ Will said Wednesday. ‘We just want the masks to be optional and to have the freedom of choice to go to school and if we don’t want to wear a mask, we don’t have to wear a mask, and if we do, we can.’ 

Parents across the nation are frustrated by the mask mandates, demanding that officials citing they prevent the spread of COVID provide evidence of their efficacy in the school system.

‘I have been following all of this very closely for the past two years,’ Alyson Seden, of Pasadena, California, told DailyMail.com.  

‘And I have yet to see a definitive study proving masks work.’

The mother – who has three children ages 21, 19 and 18 – is part of an activism group fighting to lift mask mandates in schools. 

She argues that ‘unelected public health directors’ are holding the ‘mental, academic and physical health’ of America’s children in their hands, but their ‘only focus has been Covid case numbers.’

‘We have been lied to before and flooded with mixed messaging or hand waiving “it’s the science” dismissals and the trust is gone,’ Seden said. 

‘I don’t think I can take another day knowing kids as young as two years old are covering their faces and the adults they interact with are covering theirs as well. This IS child abuse and it is heartbreaking.’

Bryan Nee, of Lake County, Illinois, citing concerns about his children’s speech development and ability to recognize faces.

‘A lot of it is speech impediment and it comes down to facial recognition,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘I have seen it with my six-year-old daughter specifically – her interactions with people are not the same.’

Nee said his first-grade daughter and his fiancee’s son, also six, struggle to identify masked individuals and are seemingly uncomfortable around them.

‘When I’m at work and my kids see me, you can see they don’t know who it is,’ he explained. ‘They cannot make that connection.’

His concerns are echoed in a new study published by York University in the U.K. that found masks make it difficult for children to recognize faces and, in turn, could affect their ability to socialize and make friends. 

Nee – who has four children – also noted how his two first-graders protested the school mask mandates this week in wake of the temporary restraining order.

‘My daughter chose not to wear a mask on Monday night. She’s done it every day this week,’ he explained, noting that her brother has also joined her in this decision.

Nee said on the first day, 50 other students came to school maskless, but it has since been just a few. The school has reportedly placed the unmasked in a separate room where they work independently. 

He is hoping that pending litigation and the moves of other governors will encourage Pritzker to amend his ‘illegal mandate’. 

‘We just want it to be fair for our kids. It’s an important step,’ he said. ‘From children up to adults, everybody should have a choice. People constantly say “it’s my body, it’s my choice.” It should be the same with this.’

He also slammed the governor’s recent decision to lift indoor mask mandates but keep them in effect in school as ‘absolutely ridiculous.’

‘It’s absurd. Why can we go to a restaurant or event and we don’t need them, but children – who through this whole pandemic were least effected – can’t go to school without them?’ he questioned.

Jillian St. Pierre, an Illinoisan with an eight-year-old son, called the governor’s move to lift indoor mask mandates ‘reckless and irresponsible’.

‘Illinois has made plans to lift the mandate, but not yet for schools,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘Honestly, I don’t feel good about it. I think it is reckless and irresponsible at this point. It keeps the kids safe.’

She added: ‘The mask mandate hasn’t really impacted my son, except he loves licorice so he hates that he has to take it off to have his favorite snack! The school does make concessions for kids to take their masks off when eating and drinking. Also, his new thing is that he watches a movie every single day – once his homework is done – and sometimes I see him sitting in our house with his mask on while watching a movie because he is so used to it.’

Meanwhile, Biden and other federal leaders are standing by their recommendation to mask kids in schools. 

‘When I got in office only 46 percent of schools were opened, now 98 percent of them are open and they’re wearing masks,’ Biden said. 

‘What’s happening is every day that goes by children are more protected. We’re now on the verge of being able to have shots for children under the age of seven and young children and and so the more protection they have, probably you’re going to see less and less requirement to have the mask,’ he said.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki noted at her Wednesday briefing that CDC continues to recommend masking during indoor congregate settings for areas where transmission is high – which currently includes most of the country.  

‘We owe it to our children to make sure that they can safely stay in school,’ CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told WYPR earlier this week.

‘Right now, that includes masking. We’ve seen outbreaks that have occurred in communities where students were not masked in schools and had to close. … And much of our guidance is based on the amount of community transmission.’  

State and local officials are driving decisions on school masking, although the American Rescue Plan has provided funds for safety improvements and testing. Some academics have weighed in with cautions about the social and developmental impacts of long-term masking. 

U.S. Covid infections are dropping as the nation works its way through the omicron surge, although hospitalizations are still high, as are death rates, which stood at 2,300 based on a seven-day moving average Thursday.

The seven-day daily average of infections was about 247,000 cases per day Wednesday – down 44 percent from a week ago.