Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
Over 100+ protesters including parents and their kids march along Hollywood Blvd Sunday, Feb 27,2022. The March was the “Free LA” rally to demand the county end all COVID-19 mandates, including ones related to masking in schools, and for a return to normalcy.
(Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing Photographer)
On the eve of an anticipated announcement by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration about when its indoor school masking mandate might be lifted, more than 100 people gathered in Hollywood on Sunday, Feb. 27, to demand the end of COVID-19 mandates – with an emphasis on doing away with school masking requirements – in order to restore a sense of normalcy for students.
During the “March to Free LA,” an event organized by the grassroots groups The L.A. Uprising and California Students United and attended by parents from Los Angeles Unified and other Southern California districts, participants called on local, state and federal officials to stop treating the presence of the coronavirus as a state of emergency.
Two years into the pandemic, with transmission and hospitalization rates coming down again after the winter surge and with vaccines available in the United States to those who want them, there is a growing sentiment that the virus is here to stay, and that society must learn to live with it.
“Why are we having a state of emergency when we’re hosting the Super Bowl and the Oscars? … We want L.A. to go back to normal,” said Danna Rosenthal, a member of The L.A. Uprising and California Students United, and a parent in L.A. Unified.
She and other parents have voiced concerns that prolonged COVID-19 restrictions in schools are harming students, citing learning loss and mental health crises that many children have experienced throughout the pandemic.
“If the adults don’t start realizing what we’ve done to kids, it’s going to be a major tragedy going forward,” Rosenthal said. “We need to start putting children first instead of asking the children to protect us.”
Those who participated in the march say they’ve lost faith in public health officials and believe that COVID-19 restrictions aren’t grounded in science but, rather, politics. They have been calling for L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer to be fired or to step down.
Sunday’s march down Hollywood Boulevard, from La Brea Avenue to Vine Street, came on the eve of a highly anticipated announcement that state officials are expected to make Monday regarding when California might lift its indoor school masking policy.
The march also took place two days after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eased up on its guidance to allow more counties to lift indoor masking mandates. However, under the new guidelines, L.A. County, like 37% of other counties in the U.S., is still considered a high risk area for coronavirus transmissions. In such counties, the CDC continues to recommend that people, including students, wear masks indoors.
L.A. Unified School District officials have repeatedly touted the district’s COVID-19 safety protocols – whose standards are considered among the highest in the nation – for keeping students and staff safe. They have often cited those protocols as a core reason why no campus has had to shut down since schools reopened.
The head of the local teachers union also recently suggested that it’s too early to discuss lifting indoor masking mandates in schools.
“These protocols, including the current testing regiment and indoor masking, have protected tens of thousands of educators and more than half a million students, along with their families,” United Teachers Los Angeles President Cecily Myart-Cruz had said Wednesday. “It is premature to discuss removing these health and safety measures while there are still many unvaccinated youths in our early education programs and schools.”
