Kane County Reporter

One day after a Sangamon County Judge declared Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s statewide school mask mandate “null and void,” Republican gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin took to Twitter.

“We need to end these (mask) mandates and restore the rights of parents and local communities,” he said.

But back home in Aurora, Irvin wasn't taking his own advice.

Richard Irvin campaigned for re-election on the success of his "Mask Up Aurora" campaign. | City of Aurora

Unlike his four rivals for the GOP nomination, Irvin could offer more than just talk about unmasking children. As mayor of Illinois' second-largest city, he might actually do it.

Yet mask mandates continue in Aurora, with Mayor Richard Irvin siding with the man Candidate Richard Irvin hopes to unseat in November. 

City employees, city building visitors and Aurora children playing youth sports indoors are still required by Mayor Irvin to keep their faces covered, in violation of Judge Raylene Grischow's court order and continued adherence to the wishes of Pritzker.

The same goes for the city’s three school districts, which all announced last week they would ignore the court order and continue enforcing Pritzker's now-illegal mask mandate. 

That's amidst a Great School Mask Rebellion that swept across Illinois last week, as Grischow's ruling inspired tens of thousands of angry parents to pack school board meetings and angrier students to stage walk-outs and rallies, demanding school boards follow her order and let them take off their masks.

“We must wear our masks, period”

That Irvin hasn’t joined Illinois' mask rebels, or even tried to publicly encourage school leaders in Aurora to unmask their students, holds consistent.

Save Chicago's Lori Lightfoot, since COVID-19's emergence perhaps no Illinois mayor has been more relentless in his advocacy for face masks than Irvin, who highlighted mask mandates as part of his successful 2021 re-election campaign and even held webinars to teach city hobbyists to "make face coverings... to fill a need."

In Aug. 2020, after Gov. Pritzker asked Illinois city leaders to help him promote masks, Irvin enthusiastically launched a “Mask up Aurora” campaign, dedicating a section of the city web site to mask-wearing and holding a kick-off media announcement.

“The governor (Pritzker) called me on Tuesday evening to explain his plan for the state,” Irvin said. “I pledge the support of Aurora to do our part to help in the statewide effort.”

He promised free masks for city residents and demanded they wear them everywhere, even trick-or-treaters walking outside on Halloween.

“First, we must wear our masks. Period,” Irvin said. “I’m asking every Auroran to commit to wearing masks in public spaces.”

Irvin said that if residents and business owners didn't obey his order to wear masks and enforce mask-wearing, he would be forced to "crack down," imposing fines and keeping city-imposed restrictions on work and attending school and youth sports events.

“If we wear masks regularly for just four to eight weeks, we can really continue to flatten the curve,” he said.

That was 76 weeks ago. 

"A false sense of protection"

Irvin has been resolute on masks, like Pritzker, long expressing certainty in their effectiveness, claiming Aurora city residents “have literally saved lives” by wearing them.

“We know masks are effective in slowing the spread of COVID-19,” Irvin told Aurora residents. “You aren’t just wearing a mask for you, you are wearing one for everyone else you might come in contact with.”

“Follow the science,” he said.

But despite the representations of politicians and public health officials, the science on masks has always been unanimous: they don't protect wearers, or anyone else, against viral spread. 

Myriad studies published before COVID concluded that "wearing...face masks may produce a false sense of protection" against viruses, and that they "offer limited personal protection with respect to small particle inhalation."

A 2006 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that there was "little data" to show that masks prevent spread of viruses and that "to the extent they can help at all, they must be used correctly, and the best respirator or mask will do little to protect a person who uses it incorrectly" or "more than once."

Now, the mask politics have begun to catch up to the mask science.

Last month, left-leaning journal The Atlantic published "The Case Against Masks in Schools," an exhaustive analysis of mask mandates that searched for evidence of their efficacy but "came up empty-handed."

"Imposing on millions of children an intervention that provides little discernible benefit, on the grounds that we have not yet gathered solid evidence of its negative effects, violates the most basic tenet of medicine: First, do no harm," it said.

Whether support for mask mandates will harm the political prospects of champions like Irvin or Pritzker, is, in part, a matter of voters' memories.

One data point: Republican Glenn Youngkin improbably won the Virginia governorship last November on a platform that emphasized ending mask mandates, winning the support of Democrat parents who crossed-over, loathe to vote for his pro-mask opponent.

Vying for the Illinois Republican nomination for governor are Irvin, State Senator Darren Bailey of Xenia (Clay County) in southwestern Illinois, entrepreneur Gary Rabine of Bull Valley in McHenry County, lawyer and former State Senator Paul Schimpf of Waterloo (Monroe County) in southeastern Illinois and venture capitalist Jesse Sullivan of Petersburg in Menard County near Springfield.