DHEC director explains why the SC agency won’t issue order mandating masks in schools

Dozens of messages pour into South Carolina’s health department each day from anxious parents asking the agency to require masks in schools because they believe it would create the safest environment for their children.

State health officials agree with those parents and understand their concerns, said Edward Simmer, director of the Department of Health and Environmental Control.

But the agency has decided against issuing a universal mask order in schools, even as thousands of children, many too young to be vaccinated, catch COVID-19 each week and dozens of schools are forced to temporarily suspend in-person classes due to outbreaks.

Simmer said he has to consider what would make for an effective policy that’s in the best interest of South Carolina residents.

“An order that I cannot enforce is not effective,” Simmer said. “And right now I’m convinced that if I wrote an order, it could not be enforced.”

Some residents, including a number of Democratic state lawmakers, have accused Simmer and the agency of bowing to political pressure from the Republican governor and politicians who vehemently oppose school mask requirements.

In an interview with The State, the director denied that politics factored into the agency’s decisions. He questioned the effectiveness of issuing a public health order that would be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce due to a measure Republican lawmakers slipped into the state budget that prohibits schools from using state money to enforce mask requirements.

“The law is determined by the Legislature and the governor,” Simmer said Tuesday during a sit-down interview. “And if there’s a law, we need to follow it.”

He said he may not always agree with the governor or state lawmakers on how best to combat the coronavirus. On the issue of universal masking in schools, they disagree. But they all share the singular goal of wanting to bring an end to the pandemic.

Simmer said he hasn’t held his tongue when he has disagreed with lawmakers, citing his request that the General Assembly revisit its anti-mask mandate provision and a recent op-ed he wrote calling for masks to be required in schools, but said there’s only so much he can do.

“I think DHEC’s job is to be apolitical, and we try very hard to do that and say this is what the best evidence shows that we should do,” he said. “Now the decision makers — the Legislature, the governor, local governments, too, to a great degree — obviously will take that advice and then do what they think is best.”

DHEC chief: I understand parents’ frustration

The director acknowledged that DHEC has the authority to issue a public health order mandating masks in schools and said he understands why parents are frustrated the agency has yet to do so.

“If I had a child in a K-12 school, I would want that child to go to a school where masks were required. No question. That’s the safest environment for that child,” Simmer said. “So do I understand why parents want us to take action on this? Yes, I do. Do I understand why a parent would be frustrated if they believed that we could make children in school wear masks and we’re not? Yes, if I was that parent, I’d be frustrated, too.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends wearing masks in indoor public places and in outdoor crowds to slow the spread of COVID-19, even among those who have been vaccinated. The highly contagious delta variant continues to drive up new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

It remains a question whether cities and counties or even DHEC itself can enforce school mask mandates. Columbia recently passed a mask requirement intended to get around the state’s school mask provision by tasking city fire officials, not school personnel, with enforcement.

Simmer said he’s eager to see whether Columbia’s ordinance will withstand legal scrutiny, if challenged, and expects that other communities may follow the capital city’s lead if it does hold up.

In the event that happens, the director said not to expect to see DHEC rushing to enact school mask requirements statewide. It’s not the threat of a lawsuit that’s been keeping the agency from issuing a mask mandate, he said.

“I think public health orders should be a use of last resort,” Simmer explained. “That when nothing else works, we can do that.”

In this case, however, he said it appears districts with supportive local officials, as in Columbia, could work with those officials to impose local mask requirements.

“Do they really need a public health order to do that or could another city, another county take similar action to what Columbia has done?” the director said. “I think they could.”

While Simmer isn’t opposed to using the agency’s emergency powers, he said a school district would need to demonstrate why a public health order was absolutely necessary and how a mask mandate would be enforced.

“We’d need to be convinced that there was an enforcement mechanism, that we had support from the local officials — because they’re the ones that are going to have to enforce it — and that the public health order is the best and really the only effective way to make that happen,” the director said. “If all that was true, we would give it very serious consideration.”

This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 7:41 PM.

Zak Koeske

The State

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Zak Koeske is a projects reporter for The State. He previously covered state government and politics for the paper. Before joining The State, Zak covered education, government and policing issues in the Chicago area. He’s also written for publications in his native Pittsburgh and the New York/New Jersey area.