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More than 100 parents and kids amassed near City Hall on Sunday to demand that Mayor Eric Adams “unmask our toddlers” as they railed against the Big Apple’s face-covering mandate for little ones.
Around 80 parents and 30 children banded together in City Hall Park with signs that read, “My kid my choice” and “Follow the science” to protest against the mask requirement for children age 4 and under.
“Unmask our toddlers! Unmask our toddlers!” the group chanted.
Daniela Jampel, 38, of Washington Heights — who has three kids, including a 4-year-old in public pre-K — slammed Adams and local health officials for “not following the science.
“New York state recognizes the science. Everywhere else in New York state, 10 miles away in Nassau County, 10 miles away in Westchester County, toddlers are allowed to take off their masks along with their older brothers and sisters in school,” Jampel told The Post.
“Our mayor and our new health commissioner tell us it’s not safe for toddlers to take off their masks. This is not following the science. This is making a mockery of the science. This is playing us for fools.”
Adams has defended his decision, arguing that masking is necessary for younger kids because they aren’t yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccines.
But critics pointed to the low hospitalization rates among children who test positive for the virus.
“Why do the kids who carry the least burden and the least amount of hospitalization in this country, in New York City, have to be masked, when the mayor just dropped the mandate for vaccinations at public restaurants, movie theaters, for elderly, unvaccinated, morbidly obese, cancer patients who are going to put a huge burden on the health system if they get COVID?” said Dr. Dyan Hes, a pediatrician and medical director at Gramercy Pediatrics, to The Post.
“But these little children, who put the least burden on the health system and have the least risk, are still forced to mask?”
Eric Olson, 45, of Park Slope, Brooklyn, who has a 3-year-old son James, called on Adams to provide a timeline for when the tots can forgo masks.
“How long is this going to last? We want a timetable from the mayor on when this is going to end, and he hasn’t given us any information that we know of,” he said.
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