Lubbock County Medical Society: ‘Kids Are Going to Start to Die’

On Thursday, August 26th, the Lubbock County Medical Society presented a letter to Lubbock ISD saying that they recommended universal masking in schools, regardless of vaccination status.

LCMS said that within 30 days of the start of the 2021-22 school year, Lubbock ISD will have about 50 cases of COVID-19 that require hospitalization. Within 60 days, they say the district will have around 126 cases needing hospitalization.

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Section Chief of Orthopedics at Covenant Medical Center Dr. Courtney Cowden said that with the current rate of COVID-19 infections, Covenant will run out of pediatric ICU beds within a few weeks. Cowden then said that when that inevitably happens, kids will begin dying.

He went on to emphasize that the COVID-19 policies in place at Lubbock ISD were "inadequate" and "out of touch with modern, current medical guidelines."

On top of requiring masks, the LCMS recommended that schools allow vaccination clinics in schools for all eligible, enforce social distancing and good hygiene, frequent disinfection, the quarantining of those exposed to COVID-19, distance learning for immunocompromised students and instructing parents to refrain from sending sick children to school.

KAMC News reports that the Lubbock ISD Board of Trustees have not voted on the issue and there is no vote scheduled.

Many parents have expressed their desire to allow students to attend Lubbock ISD without a mask mandate, including Jay House and Carl Tepper. House said that trying to make people feel responsible for someone else's death was a form of "bullying."

At the same time, however, some parents were supportive of masks, such as Dr. Jessica Tullar Caroom.