Rockingham Times

Parents challenging school mask mandates have lost the latest round of their lawsuit in Rockingham County Oct. 20.

Rockingham County Superior Court Judge Marguerite Wageling dismissed a request to stop the mandate, ruling that the parents aren't likely to succeed in their challenge, NBC 10 Boston reported.

The parents claimed that masks cause difficulty breathing, facial acne, anxiety and headaches. The lawsuit claimed the mandates break a state law that prevents “dangerous restraint  techniques" in schools and that the state lacks authority to issue the mandate.

Parents have also sued school districts in Exeter, Brentwood, Kensington and Stratham, according to NBC 10 Boston.

COVID-19 infections linked to clusters in New Hampshire schools have nearly doubled in the last two weeks, New Hampshire Public Radio reported. "According to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, there have been 141 COVID clusters recorded in K-12 school this academic year. There are 1,400 individual cases associated with those clusters, mostly among students," NHPR said.

Although COVID-19 cases are decreasing nationally, they continue to rise in New Hampshire, but there have been no deaths of anyone under 18 linked to the coronavirus in the state, NHPR said.

New Hampshire is averaging 500 to 550 new cases a day and a 6% positivity among those who are tested.

There have been a total of 1,568 deaths in New Hampshire from COVID-19 since the pandemic began, the state reported. The state's vaccination rate now stands at 54.7% of residents fully vaccinated and 60% having received at least one dose.