The March Politico-Harvard survey found that 46 percent of respondents said forcing kids to wear masks in class damaged their mental and emotional health, and 39 percent said it hindered students’ ability to learn. Only 11 percent said it helped, while almost half said mandates had no effect.

“The poll’s findings come as the Biden administration monitors events in Europe, where BA.2, a subvariant of Omicron, is wreaking havoc, and White House officials warn that masks may be necessary if Covid-19 cases increase in the United States,” according to Politico.

“Even if I’m in a Democratic state or district, I’d pay attention because there are a substantial number of independent parents who think the policy is hurting their children,” said Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “If you say something hurts my children, you’re going to feel strongly about it. … Anything that has an impact on your family has a disproportionate impact on how you think of things.”

Researchers also asked respondents if they believe masks were essential to keeping students safe. A majority (52 percent) believed they were unnecessary. Blendon indicated this figure should give pause to any politician considering reinstating the mandates.

“The parents who are against it are not going back. They’ve concluded it’s not good for children’s education and it’s two years of this,” he speculated. “When you have a substantial number of parents who think their children are being threatened, it’s going to matter politically.”

Results fell largely along party lines, with Republicans taking an anti-mask stance and Democrats favoring the mandates. But among independents, 45 percent reported that the measures hurt their children.

This confirms what many believed when a slew of Democratic governors announced they would be doing away with mask mandates in public spaces and in schools. They seem to have been reading the writing on the wall. They realized pushing mandatory masks was no longer politically palatable. Given that Democrats are in a precarious position in the lead-up to the midterm elections, these moves make sense.

However, President Biden is a different story altogether.

Even while left-leaning governors declared plans to jettison their states’ mask mandates, he continued pressing them to keep the measures in place. Nevertheless, these governors are not budging. But this does not mean the White House will hesitate to pressure them to reinstate the restrictions, if America experiences an increase in COVID cases.

We have already seen that this administration wishes to keep mask mandates in place. Despite the spread of the virus being less severe, it still extended mask requirements in airports and airplanes past its March 18 expiration date. Now, they are set to expire in April – assuming that this mask-loving administration does not extend it further.

The CEOs of 10 airlines are pushing back against the White House’s insistence on requiring people to wear masks on planes. Industry group Airlines for America penned a letter to the administration urging it to rethink its fixation on masks. It argued that “now is the time for the Administration to sunset federal transportation travel restrictions — including the international predeparture testing requirement and the federal mask mandate — that are no longer aligned with the realities of the current epidemiological environment.”

The results of the poll further demonstrate that the country is smack dab in the middle of a post-COVID era. People want things to go back to normal despite the spread of the Omicron variant, which has proven to be far less deadly than its predecessors. At this point, it would be foolhardy for Biden and his merry band of Democrats to test the patience of the American people any further. The public is not exactly happy with how they have handled their time in office – and this would be yet another misstep that will hand control of Congress back to Republicans.