Governor: Parents should decide whether children wear masks

ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp has announced that he will propose legislation giving Georgia parents the final say on whether to send their children to school wearing masks.

Kemp accused some school districts of “ignoring the science” on masking, as many states — including Democratic strongholds New York, California and New Jersey — have dropped mask mandates in recent days.

In Georgia, Atlanta Public Schools and the Gwinnett County Public Schools are among the school districts that have imposed mask mandates inside school buildings.

“This is gone too far,” Kemp wrote in a statement posted on Twitter. “Most of our citizens are not doing it around the state.”

Kemp came into conflict early in the coronavirus pandemic with then-Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, while Bottoms and the mayors of Augusta, Savannah and Athens asked the governor to require masks in state buildings.

At one point, Kemp sued Bottoms and other Atlanta officials over her decision to impose a mask mandate in Georgia’s capital city.

But with vaccines available to everyone who wants one and hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 coming down, municipal governments have moved away from requiring masks.

However, new Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens has decided to continue the mask mandate Bottoms reimposed in December as the omicron variant of the virus was spreading.

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