(Enterprise photos — Aaron Cerbone)

The New York State Department of Health is requiring children age 2 and up to wear masks in day care and summer camp settings, starting immediately, and two state lawmakers representing the North Country don’t like it.

Sen. Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, and Assemblyman Billy Jones, D-Chateaugay Lake, released statements Thursday opposing the preschooler mask plan. Stec called the timing of the rule “absurd” considering that “Infection rates are dropping, young children are not at risk to suffer serious side effects, and vaccines are now widely available.” Jones said it was “misguided,” saying it “put an undue burden on child care providers without even consulting them.”

Fourteen months into the coronavirus pandemic, New York recently followed the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in lifting mask requirements for fully vaccinated people outdoors, and also indoors in many settings. Vaccinations were only recently opened up to children as young as 12, but few of those have been vaccinated yet and there are no vaccines approved yet for younger children. Children have proven to be at low risk for illness and death from the coronavirus, but they can spread it.

The new DOH guidance for child care centers, day camps and overnight camps, dated Wednesday, says, “Responsible Parties must ensure that children/campers age 2 and older and staff who are not fully vaccinated wear face coverings except when eating, drinking, showering, swimming, or sleeping/resting.” It says children may also remove masks outdoors “when they are unable to tolerate a face covering for the physical activity.”

The 23-page document also gives extensive other coronavirus protection rules for social distancing, personal protective equipment, screening, sanitizing and contact tracing.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, children 2 and over in child care settings were not required to wear masks, and with the new guidance, they are required to wear them effective immediately,” Jones said. “This new guidance contradicts the recent move by New York to relax mask mandates, leading many child care professionals and parents to be confused by this drastic shift in policy.”

“Not once throughout the pandemic did I hear that COVID-19 infection was a problem in our day cares,” Stec said. “This is a great example of why my Senate Republican colleagues and I continue to demand the governor’s emergency authority end immediately. The Legislature has once again been bypassed by the Cuomo administration.”

In March the Legislature partly rescinded emergency powers it had given Gov. Andrew Cuomo a year before, but many of the governor’s executive orders continue to be extended and altered.

“It is unacceptable that the state has failed to give child care and summer camp providers and parents time to prepare for this new guidance,” said Jones, who represents and Franklin and Clinton counties and part of St. Lawrence County. “Considering how most of my district is in a child care desert, I am also concerned about how this guidance will hurt an industry that is already struggling. Working parents throughout the North Country rely on child care programs and summer camps for their child care needs, and our region cannot afford putting any of these providers in jeopardy due to this new guidance. The governor and the Department of Health must reconsider this guidance, and work with child care professionals to find a solution that better serves our children.”

“Maybe at the start of the pandemic, this policy would have made sense,” Stec said. “But today, is defies logic.”