Ahead of Louisiana expecting its worst day of COVID-19 hospitalizations yet, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards will be bringing the state back under a mask mandate until at least September 1.

During a Monday afternoon press conference, Edwards, a Democratic governor in a deep red state, told reporters that the situation in the state is the worst it’s ever been.

“This is bad. And it’s not this bad anywhere else in the country today,” Edwards said. “This is having an adverse impact on people’s lives today. And the least we can do is put a mask on. It is not an onerous burden.”

The mandate will apply to children as young as five years old and will apply to schools throughout the state.

. @LouisianaGov says of requiring masks in schools: "It’s vitally important that we protect our children, especially those who are too young to be vaccinated." He says state needs to provide safest setting for children so they can remain in classrooms. #lalege #lagov

— Melinda Deslatte (@MelindaDeslatte) August 2, 2021

The problem is that masking up in schools won’t actually protect students, and even a Biden administration advisor admitted that a lot of the masking Americans went through simply didn’t work.

Louisiana schools, like schools across the country, did not see mass spreader events within schools. In one district in south Louisiana, two schools went all virtual for a few days ahead of the Christmas break due to a high number of cases, but officials confirmed that the cause was outside infection, not spread within schools.

And none of the data available even shows that students are capable of mass spreader events, especially at the youngest levels. Their ability to carry and infect the virus is almost nonexistent according to a lot of the data we have, and even the dreaded Delta variant does not seem to be causing them to get extremely sick.

Luckily, it does not appear Edwards will be pushing for school closures or any sort of partial schedules for students — the latter of which drastically affected students academically, socially, and emotionally in the 2020-2021 school year.