AHS students walk out to protest mask optional law - NBC 29
ALBEMARLE COUNTY, Va. (WVIR) - Some Albemarle High School students are walking out of class in protest of those who chose to go without a mask.
Due to an order by Governor Glenn Younkin, masks are optional as of Tuesday, March 1. As a result, students across the commonwealth are now able to choose to leave the mask at home.
“We all sort of felt powerless, and we wanted to sort of step up and give ourselves a voice in this scenario where we felt like we have no real agency and what was going on,” AHS senior Morgan Bizier said.
More than 70 AHS students walked out Tuesday morning, saying they’re concerned for their own safety and the safety of those around them.
“I have a minor asthma and there are quite a few people in my family who have severe asthma and we just really care about the fact that in a situation like this where there’s life-or-death scenarios, the more people who take this nonchalantly the more likely it is to be dangerous,” Morgan said.
AHS kept reporters as far away from the protest as they could. The main office later apologized for that.
“We want to provide, particularly the high school level students, with information from all different sources, encourage them to do research, and encourage them to come up with their own points of view around decisions about how strongly they feel about issues,” Albemarle Co. Public Schools Spokesperson Phil Giaramita said. “Students have been really supportive of all the mitigation strategies, including contact tracing, so they’ve had a major role in helping to keep our school community safe.”
Gov. Youngkin says this is all about choice: “I think the great thing about the legislation that was signed is that if you want to wear a mask, please wear one, and if your parents choose for you not to wear a mask, you don’t have to,” he said.
“This is a genuine life-or-death scenario that we have been living through and just because we all feel fatigued over it, and we all are sort of exhausted by all of these restrictions and everything doesn’t mean that we can just stop caring because ultimately, people’s lives are at risk,” Morgan said.
The Virginia Department of Health reported March 1 a total of 18,811 deaths and 47,284 hospitalizations in the commonwealth from COVID-19.
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source: https://www.nbc29.com/2022/03/01/ahs-students-walk-out-protest-mask-optional-law/
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