Help your daycare!!!!
Give them the letter below. Ask them if they want to join in writing to the Office of Licensing that will be regulating child care facilities in the implementation of EO 264: The Baby Mask Mandate of the Evil One
Have your daycare direct a letter to:
State of New Jersey
Department of Children and Families
Office Of Licensing
PO Box 717
Trenton, NJ 08625
Telephone: 1-877-667-9845
Here is a free sample they may use:
To Whom it May Concern:
Please be advised that I am the director/owner/operator/franchise owner of _________ childcare facility, license number ________.
We are in receipt of the Executive Order 264 from Governor Murphy, in which the Governor at Section 11(d) requires a covered setting to maintain a policy regarding mandatory use of face mask by “child enrollees” over the age of two (2) years old.
I am writing to advise that we strongly urge the Office of Licensing to consider the instructions in EO 264 to be a guiding suggestion, subject to the important health, wellness, liability and moral issues raised in actually attempting to incorporate the broad language of the EO.
Our facility has already maintained a policy that complies with the intent of EO 264, as you are aware. Face masks are mandatory for staff and visitors, and children over two years of age are encouraged and assisted with mask wearing.
However, requiring continuous, inflexible, obligatory masking of children in a critical age group who are still not verbally, physically, or emotionally capable of asserting respiratory distress, anxiety, fears, and other potentially-life threatening complications is quite simply imposing an obligation for a covered center to engage in child abuse.
Our staff will not able to effectively protect the health and wellness of developing bodies and voices while their young mouths are hidden from view. In a matter of moments, during a diaper change, another masked child could sneak a toy or cloth into his or her mouth and potentially choke or suffocate.
What the Governor has asked of our facility is legally, practically, and morally impermissible to our staff, our families, and our own hearts.
Our facility has been open as a safe and secure refuge for families of essential workers, health care providers, and so many others in need of child care during the pandemic. At a time when vaccinations are reaching their highest levels in NJ as compared to much of the rest of the United States, and as there is no clinical trial affirming the safety of extended mask wearing in children, we ask that your office respect the practices and procedures we already have in place. Trust our experience and professionalism to guide the appropriate masking times, not an arbitrary and capricious, 24th hour demand upon providers with no adequate notice and comment by the public.
We have consulted with legal counsel and a medical biostatistician in considering our response to EO 264. We have been advised that there is no long-term safety trials or clinical studies for daily use by children. It is our legal and moral obligation to our families that we have a level of autonomy in providing care while incorporating the current guidelines requested by the OOL.
Our medical biostatistician has provided us with the following data:
With Covid deaths of children in the 0-4 category at 2 deaths, we find it a much greater concern that we would potentially increase risks of involuntary choking, seizures, suffocations, and asthma and anxiety attacks in a population with a near-zero risk of death.
Will the Office of Licensing be willing to indemnify our facility from liability in the event of any adverse reactions or death as a result of this new requirement? Will you publicly assure our facility’s families that the new Executive Order 264 poses no health risks for those in our care, based on a clinical safety trial study?
We look forward to your response. In the meantime, we will maintain the existing practices and procedures that have served our families so well since this facility opened in July 2020.
Sincerely,
One brave childcare provider
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No one fights alone. Don’t give up and don’t give in.