Allison Weisenberger: Halloween 2020 – It's government overreach that is really spooky this year

If you had told parents living in Los Angeles back in March, that we would still be under lockdown seven months later and that our children would not be permitted to freely trick-or-treat on Halloween we would have started our own peaceful playground protests.

 As a mother of two small children, I have seen firsthand how my kids have been uniquely impacted by the extended confinement. Their routines were disrupted without warning and they've experienced broken promises of when life as they knew it would resume based on moving targets set by local officials.

If you are a parent in L.A. County, you still cannot take your kids to indoor church services, concerts, fairs, inside a restaurant, or in-person public school. 

The latest edict came last month when the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health issued their guidance on how families are permitted to celebrate Halloween. Activities that were not allowed included door to door trick-or-treating and “trunk or treating.” 

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For a brief moment, parents across the political spectrum were united in outrage on social media over the government canceling another chance to let our stir-crazy kids be kids.

The backlash led the county to soften the guidelines from an outright ban on outright trick-or-treating activities to “strongly discouraged” classification. Parades, carnivals, and haunted houses remain prohibited.

For a brief moment, parents across the political spectrum were united in outrage on social media over the government canceling another chance to let our stir-crazy kids be kids.

The state of California made its own similar announcement not long after when the California Department of Public Health decreed, “To protect yourself and your community, you should not go trick or treating or mix with others outside allowed private gatherings this Halloween season."

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California families aren’t the only ones to have leaders put a damper on the fall festivities. Washington State is also discouraging trick or treating and gatherings with people outside of the household.

Other governments, like the city of Springfield, Mass. have banned trick or treating altogether.

When it comes to how to navigate COVID-19 we are repeatedly told to listen to the science, yet liberal-run counties like Los Angeles put politics over the data when they keep schools closed and attempt to cancel Halloween.

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Study after study has told us that children are at low risk for contracting or spreading coronavirus. Even in the hot spot of New York City, both the NYC Department of Education and the YMCA told NPR in June that they had no reports of coronavirus clusters or outbreaks from the tens of thousands of children they had under their care during the first few months of the pandemic.

The data also tells us that children are even less likely to experience severe COVID-19 complications and most are comparable to the flu.  

The American Academy of Pediatrics has stressed the importance of in person learning for the well-being of children’s mental and emotional health.

Given these studies focused on schools, surely it is reasonable to deduce that trick-or-treating, which takes place outside, would be safe. 

The COVID-19 positivity rate in LA County is nearly the lowest it has been since the pandemic began as are hospitalizations.

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Thankfully, the death rate has declined to the lowest since March. So why does Los Angeles County continue to try and make this situation more painful than it needs to be for our children? Dr. Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County Public Health Director, may have shed some light on it during a leaked conference call she had with school teachers and nurses recently released on KFI’s "John and Ken Show."
 
During the call, she explains when schools would re-open, “We don’t realistically anticipate that we would be moving either Tier 2 or to reopening K-12 schools at least until after the election, in early November.”

Dr. Ferrer then doubled down and said, “When we look at the timing of everything, it seems to us a more realistic approach to this would be to think that we’re going to be where we are now until we are done with the election.”
 
It’s clear, it’s never been about the safety of our children, it’s all about politics.

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California’s public officials need to stop subjecting our children to their ugly political games and heed their own advice to listen to the science.

It’s time to end the lockdowns, and let our children be children; real trick or treating in Halloween costumes, sugary treats and all.