As of right now k-12 Schools are the only places with a mask mandate in the Liberty and Kansas City area. According to CDC as of 1/6/2022 there have only been 694 deaths from the ages of 0-17. That is 0.08% of all Covid related deaths. (CDC Deaths related to Covid-19). Covid-19 has an extremely high survival rate to begin with, using City of Columbia's government website you can find that the survival rate is 98.76% in Missouri. (City of Columbia, Covid-19 official information) Also Covid-19 has a 98.6% survival rate all over the US according to CDC as of 1/9/2022. (CDC data tracker) So you are choosing to make the least susceptible group from being harmed by Covid-19, to wear masks. Only 0.08% of an extremely low 1.4% is the amount of students that have died from Covid. However, yes it is true cases are on the rise right now because of the new Omicron strand. Omicron is the least harmful strand of covid to date, Web MD found that "The analysis also found that the risk of needing emergency care or being admitted to a hospital with with Omicron was about half of that for Delta." (Hospitalization Risk from Omicron, Peter Russel, 1/5/2022) The rest of the city has removed the mask mandate and trying to move forward, while you are holding back the group that should have been the first test of removing the mask mandate. So myself and the rest of the students sign this petition to ask please withdraw the mask mandate.