Officially the public health safety regime is being wound down, but a ruthless bureaucracy has been empowered, and those don’t just go away. They don’t.

Stephanie and Richard Rosado recently told their 4-year-old son about the importance of not talking to strangers. Only days later, state regulators came to the child’s preschool, isolated him in a room away from his teachers and friends and asked him questions about masking. 

His parents, and many others at the preschool, were furious. 

Regulators questioned the Rosados’ son as part of an investigation into masking practices at Aspen Leaf Preschool, which operates three locations in San Diego. All three locations were simultaneously “raided,” as some parents have called it, in mid-January. Regulators separated the children and toddlers from familiar adults at each of the centers to ask questions about the preschools’ masking policies. 

Is masking the new Satanic panic? 

It’s particularly strange that California Department of Social Services, which you might think already has plenty to do, decided to make this a priority even as politicians are winding down the public health security state, but the message here is not to assume that we’re free just yet.

Meanwhile politicians and celebs can party mask-less as much as they like.