Kamala Harris Skips Mask During DC School Visit As It Was Optional

Vice President Kamala Harris was slammed for not wearing a mask during a school visit on Monday.

Later, Harris' office told Fox News that she declined to wear a mask because city guidance states that masking is optional for students as well as staff.

After the Vice President's trip to Neville Thomas Elementary School, images and videos from the visit popped up. They showed her and school administrators bare-faced alongside students wearing masks. There were also photographs of Harris with unmasked students.

Many people, including political opponents criticized Harris. They argued that it was hypocritical to forgo a mask when the Joe Biden-Harris administration is pushing for some mask mandates. Republican National Committee rapid response director Tommy Pigott said, "In the Democrats' anti-science dystopia, the only person who doesn't need to wear a mask is Kamala Harris."

According to New York Post, Representative Andy Biggs said in a statement that it was “abhorrent" to see the Vice President of America "flaunting around a stage with children fully masked next to her.” He shared that if the Biden-Harris regime had the "ability to keep all Americans, including children, in masks forever, they would." He added that keeping "masks on Americans and their children is not following the science.”

President Donald Trump’s former senior adviser Stephen Miller found it "so wrong on so many levels."

DC Public Schools made face coverings optional on March 16. They emphasized that wearing one was an “individual decision.”

Harris' maskless appearance wasn't the first instance in which Democrats have been slammed for pushing masks while choosing not to wear one when they are in public, reported Fox News. In February, Democrat Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams was criticized after posing for a photograph without a mask with a group of masked school children.

Following the incident, she apologized. She said that she took a picture and that was a mistake, and that "protocols matter." According to her, "protecting our kids is the most important thing, and anything that can be perceived as undermining that is a mistake, and I apologize." Later, she doubled-down on her support for mask mandates.