Kelila Medina, 11, stands outside Mount Rose Elementary School in Reno on Feb. 11, 2022. The fifth-grader is among the Nevadans who’ve decided to keep wearing masks to protect themselves and others from COVID-19 after Gov. Steve Sisolak dropped the statewide mask mandate last week. (Siobhan McAndrew/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP)
Kelila Medina, 11, stands outside Mount Rose Elementary School in Reno on Feb. 11, 2022. The fifth-grader is among the Nevadans who’ve decided to keep wearing masks to protect themselves and others from COVID-19 after Gov. Steve Sisolak dropped the statewide mask mandate last week. (Siobhan McAndrew/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP)
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The owner of a Mexican restaurant, a manager of a clothing store and a fifth-grader who has lost seven members of her extended family to the coronavirus are among the Nevadans still wearing masks after Gov. Steve Sisolak dropped the statewide requirement last week.
Many Nevadans quickly shed their masks and celebrated Sisolak’s decision as one that prioritizes their right to choose. But others say they plan to keep them on to help protect themselves and others from COVID-19.
“I had COVID,” Kelila Medina, 11, told the Reno Gazette Journal. “I don’t want it again.”
Kelila’s family was among the first in the area to vaccinate their three oldest children. Vaccines are still not approved for Kelila’s youngest sister, who is 2. Her mother told her that because she’s been vaccinated, she could decide whether to keep wearing a mask at Reno’s Mount Rose Elementary School.
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Kelila tested positive for COVID-19 last September. She cried thinking she may have given it to her friends. She missed weeks of school recovering and spent more time away after her mother and another sister tested positive. Four of the seven relatives who died from it were younger than 40.
“It could save somebody’s life,” Kelila said. “I can wear the mask for that.”
Rebecca Garcia, president of the Nevada PTA and an administrator of a Facebook Group for parents in the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, reports a variety of reactions to Sisolak’s decision last Thursday, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“Some are worried that we’ll now see a rise in cases with the change, but then there’s many who felt that it needed to be a parent choice for quite some time and they’re happy to see that’s where it rests now,” she said.
Las Vegas parent Kate McLaughlin — who has a high school freshman in the school district — said she’s completely understanding of the state lifting the mask mandate, but she thinks masks remain the best protection for children confined classrooms.
“I have an issue with kids not being required to wear masks indoors in school,” she said in a text message to the Review-Journal.
Jestin Phipps, manager at the Levi’s store at The Outlets and Legends in Sparks, is among others who remain unconvinced that the benefits of removing masks outweigh the risks. He’s immunocompromised and has been been battling lung and kidney cancer for years.
“My goal every night is to come home and not get my family sick and vice versa,” he told Gazette Journal.
Jaime Marin, manager and owner of the Cantina Los Tres Hombres restaurant in Sparks, said he has rarely gotten sick in the two years he has had to wear a mask.
“For me, it’s like a blessing, actually, to have my mask on,” said Marin, who suffers from asthma. “I’m 58 years old. The last thing I want to do is end up in the hospital.”
