South Australia’s new premier will FORCE kids to continue wearing masks at school

South Australia’s new premier will continue the mask mandate for year 7 to 12 students and staff into term 2.

Masks will also be ‘strongly encouraged’ for those students in years 3 to 6.

Peter Malinauskas confirmed the rule will remain during a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

‘Wearing masks for kids in schools isn’t convenient and isn’t natural and I certainly feel for our students that are going to continue to wear masks for the next four weeks, but we’re making this decision in their best interests,’ Mr Malinauskas said.

‘This was a difficult decision.. that’s a tough judgment.

‘School was certainly disrupted during term 1, we know (it was) a difficult period for many of our students and many of our teachers.

‘Anything that we can do to prevent the consideration of (school closures) is something that we’ve got to keep on the table.’

Last month, Australia’s former deputy chief medical officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth warned mask mandates are detrimental to kids’ learning.

‘You’re not actually protecting the kids themselves because it’s a very, very mild disease in children with or without the vaccine,’ he said.

‘It doesn’t stop them from getting very sick because they don’t get very sick.

‘Yes … there’s lots of cases around. The people who are getting very sick with this are the very frail elderly … in nursing homes. Or the people with severe underlying conditions.

‘There is an overemphasis on the risks posed by Covid in a fully-vaccinated population and an overemphasis on the benefits of masking kids.’

Prof Coatsworth explained how he spent a week working in a hospital recently and struggled with wearing a mask.

‘I have trouble communicating with my patients (while wearing a mask),’ he said.

‘It’s hard for them to hear me, it’s hard for them to know who I am, and if that’s hard for me then I can only conclude that it would be detrimental to kids.’