Thanks to some extraordinary combination of the vaccine rollout and natural immunity, the current COVID death rate in Los Angeles is now a mere fraction of what it was after Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted his disastrous outdoor dining ban right before the 2020 holidays. Yet now, as Angelenos en masse are safer from the virus than they have been throughout the entire pandemic, the school district is forcing students to upgrade from already onerous cloth masks to highly restrictive N95s.

This is egregious not just because it is unnecessary — recall that even with the more severe delta variant, unvaccinated teenagers suffered a lower coronavirus death rate than fully vaccinated 30-year-olds — but specifically because it is actively harmful. Back at the start of the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that healthcare workers forced into N95s all day would suffer significant physiological stress, such as headaches, “increased pressure inside the skull,” “reduction in cognition,” and “difficulty coordinating sensory or cognitive, abilities and motor activity.” Maybe this was a worthy trade-off for healthcare professionals treating coronavirus patients prior to the availability of a number of effective vaccines and therapeutics. But now? For children, who even without vaccination are less likely to die from COVID than from drowning?

And ignoring the overwhelming evidence that children remain mercifully protected from severe COVID consequences, cities such as Washington, D.C., currently ban children older than 11 from entering businesses such as restaurants and sports arenas without proof of vaccination despite an indoor mask mandate for all but infants.