At the end of July, staff of Alcona Health Center sent a letter to local school districts endorsing the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics that all K-12 students start the school year required to wear masks.

In a separate letter sent Tuesday to Alpena Public Schools administrators and school board members, more than 20 medical professionals from MidMichigan Medical Center-Alpena and elsewhere in Alpena said optional masking — the district’s current policy — will lead to more illness and fewer days of in-person instruction.

Citing medical journals offering evidence that mask-wearing reduces COVID-19 transmission, the letter’s signees — including a pediatrician, a psychologist, family medicine practitioners, and surgeons, among others — said families rely on schools to provide a safe place for children to learn and socialize.

Check out the video below of Dr. Leah Conboy discussing the importance of masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Story continues below video.

Courtesy Photo Dr. Brendan Conboy, obstetrician at MidMichigan Medical Center-Alpena, scrubs his hands before surgery Wednesday evening.

If not slowed by masks, transmission of the coronavirus in classrooms could impact the whole community, increasing already-rising rates of infection and keeping residents from receiving the treatment they need for other medical conditions, doctors told The News.

David Rabbideau, Alpena Public Schools superintendent, told The News on Thursday that, unlike last school year, responsibility for deciding whether to enforce mask-wearing has been pushed onto schools by federal and state health leaders.

“It would make it easier for us to do the job of educating our students if a mandate was passed” by the state health department, Rabbideau said.

The district will continue to strongly recommend that students and staff wear masks, with hopes parents make the choice best for their families, Rabbideau said.

The issue has become especially heated in Alpena, where parents have packed school board meetings to speak for and against mask mandates, among other issues.

Opponents of mask mandates — some of whom have threatened to pull their kids from APS if the district requires masks — say masking should be up to parents. Some parents said their children have struggled socially and academically because of masks.

“This letter addressed from doctors to the school board is clearly political and not scientific,” Michael Mantas, one of those who have urged the Alpena school board not to mandate masks, said in an email to The News. “Signers are a tiny fraction of healthcare workers in Alpena, and not all are even physicians. Our children are not anyone’s political pawns. There are many more doctors and healthcare professionals who understand that the science does not support the tyrannical demands of the doctors who signed this letter.”

About 40% of Northeast Michiganders have not received full vaccination against COVID-19.

As of Monday, 361 Northeast Michiganders were actively infected with the coronavirus, according to a News analysis of state and local data. That’s up from 36 a month ago and about the same number that were actively infected in mid-June.

“Actively infected” means they’d been infected but hadn’t yet met the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s definition of “recovered,” or living 30 days after testing positive.

The state has not ordered schools to institute a mask mandate, but District Health Department No. 4 “strongly recommends that schools institute universal masking” in accordance with recommendations by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, according to Dr. Joshua Meyerson, medical director for the Health Department.

Public health officials recommend social distancing and regular handwashing, in addition to masks, to prevent the virus’ spread.

Alpena has historically followed the Health Department’s advice, Dr. David Meinhardt told The News on Wednesday, calling the school district’s decision to veer away from public health officials’ guidance “precedent-setting.”

Meinhardt, medical director of surgical anesthesia services at MidMichigan Medical Center-Alpena, said last year the hospital had to cancel elective surgeries multiple times as COVID-19 numbers rose and COVID-19 patients filled hospital beds, Meinhardt reported.

Such delays endangered those kept from cancer-screening procedures like colonoscopies and slowed the healing of people not able to undergo knee replacements and other surgeries, he said.

As of Monday, the Alpena hospital had eight COVID-19 patients and operated at 40% capacity, according to state data.

Colleagues in other states told the anesthesiologist their hospitals have once again had to stop non-critical procedures — a step the doctor thinks Alpena could avoid if schools contribute to reduced spread of the virus by requiring masks.

“This is our chance to do something to not be like everybody else,” Meinhardt said.

Meinhardt is married to Alpena Public Schools board member Anna Meinhardt.

Alpena pediatrician Leah Conboy told The News more kids have come into her office sick since the delta variant of the virus reached Alpena late last month.

“I don’t understand why the public isn’t listening to the experts,” Conboy said. “This isn’t a political issue. It’s 100% a health issue.”

Dr. Thomas Thornton, a surgeon and vice president of medical affairs at the Alpena hospital, worries other kids will bully his daughter when she goes to school wearing a mask.

He signed the letter that went to school officials this week with little hope it will make a difference in the school’s policy and fearful few local parents will make their children wear masks.

Many people in Northeast Michigan vocally advocate for individual choice and the ability to make their own health decisions, the doctor acknowledged.

When it comes to masking, the choice each family makes impacts the families of every other student in school, he said.

Children in schools — especially those too young for vaccination, currently available only to those 12 and older — can carry the virus without symptoms, taking it from the classroom to their families, said Dr. Brendan Conboy, an obstetrician who signed the letter to school officials.

Brendan Conboy is married to Leah Conboy.

Symptoms of influenza and colds, commonly spread among students and more probable among unmasked students, will likely cause confusion at school, potentially leading to whole classrooms forced to quarantine, the obstetrician said.

Alpena Community College students and staff must wear masks indoors, said college President Don MacMaster.

The college worked with the Health Department to decide whether to require masks.

While APS will maintain its mask-optional policy as the school year begins on Monday for most students, school officials remain in regular communication with the local Health Department and will adjust policy as necessary for student safety or if a mandate takes effect, according to Rabideau.

Teachers will start the school year by reminding students to understand and appreciate the choices other people make, Rabbideau said.

Check out the letters written by area doctors to Alpena Public Schools below.

Masks letter from Alcona He… by Julie Riddle

Alpena-area doctors urge APS to mask up by Justin Hinkley on Scribd

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