OCFS still continues to impose a mask mandate on children in childcare facilities in NYS. This includes Headstart and state registered daycare. The Omicron variant has been shown to still transmit with cloth masks. All other NYS schools are listed as optional mask wearing as of March 2. Children in headstart programs that ride the bus with their peers from local school districts are being exposed on the bus to school, rendering masks useless. These children will experience discrimination first hand by watching their peers walk freely in the hallways after they exit the bus and are required to mask up and remain masked for the day. Many children in headstart are already lower income and/or people of color, and may find this singling out demeaning and discriminatory. All the science prior to this point stated that masking was protecting the other person and not the person wearing the mask. Does this mean that the children in these programs are considered more likely to be infectious than other children? These mandates need removed now as they are not based on any science.