I just heard on a news broadcast that many parents are saying that forcing children to wear face masks to school to prevent the transmission of the COVID virus is child abuse. Help me understand this.

I have also heard that in some of the areas where the parents are resisting masking, the transmission rate is up thousands of percentage points and many children are being hospitalized, and a number of them are dying. Of course the parents are not allowed in the room where the child is fighting the battle, some on ventilators and some losing the battle and dying. Is comparing this horrible battle in a hospital with all of them fighting it alone and some of them dying alone not child abuse?

For those too young for the vaccine, the mask and social distancing are the best way to avoid the disease in the first place. That is abuse, while leaving children vulnerable is not? What am I missing here?