MARSHALL — A group of Marshall area residents, including local physicians, urged Marshall Public Schools officials Tuesday to re-think plans to return to class without requiring face masks.
“Masks do help, any kind of a mask,” said Dr. Vincent LaPorte. With a more infectious strain of COVID-19 spreading across the country, masks are an important precaution, he said. “Masking is the answer. Little plastic shields are a joke compared to a mask.”
Earlier this month, MPS Superintendent Jeremy Williams shared with the school board proposed COVID-19 safety protocols that did not include a mask mandate.
LaPorte addressed the school board during a public comment period at the start of its regular meeting on Tuesday. He was accompanied by a small group of community members including concerned parents and Dr. Tim Mok, an urgent care physician in Marshall.
“I’m here to make a pitch for the safety of this new delta variant. It’s a whole new game. We’re starting over, unfortunately,” LaPorte said. “I’m recommending, in a nutshell, that we do social distancing and masking initially, and after eight weeks or 12 weeks take it off. Not the other way around, waiting until it warms up and somebody gets burned.”
The delta variant of COVID-19 spreads faster than the version that arrived in Minnesota last year, LaPorte said. It will be important to work to slow that spread, especially while many people, including children, are still unvaccinated, he said.
“Forty percent or more of our adult population in this county is not vaccinated. Nobody under the age of 12 is vaccinated,” although children under 12 will likely be approved for COVID vaccines later this winter, LaPorte said.
LaPorte said he knew his speaking time was limited during the public forum, but he and Mok would be willing to take more time to answer the school board’s questions about COVID-19, and data from the Minnesota Department of Health and the CDC.
“We offer to come and give you a presentation, for 30 to 60 minutes, in detail, about what’s coming,” LaPorte said.
LaPorte said vaccinations are the most powerful tool for fighting COVID-19, and he said they are safe and effective.
“I attended 12 vaccine clinics this spring here in Marshall,” which represented a total of about 5,000 people being vaccinated, he said. Among those people, he said, “We had exactly four reactions. Three of them were solved with a glass of water and a little time. One of them was a real reaction that we treated, and they recovered in five minutes. So this vaccine is safe, no doubt about it.”
The school board did not respond to LaPorte’s comments or act on his offer at Tuesday’s meeting. However, later in the meeting Williams did comment on how the school district was approaching COVID-19 response this fall. Williams said MPS was taking the community’s concerns seriously.
“We know that the virus and the protocols look different this fall, and we’re still needing to address and respond to that,” Williams said. “We recognize we have students, staff and community members who see this from different perspectives. As a district, we’re really working to find balance with that and meeting the requirements.”
Williams said MPS “remains committed to following guidelines available to us from public health, the MDH, the MDE and the CDC.”
Community members stayed after the board meeting to ask questions and speak further with Williams and school board members including Jeff Chapman and Bill Swope.
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Physicians 'make a pitch' for masks at MPS - Marshall Independent
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