Ludington Board Goes Against Science in Retracting Mask Mandate

[XLFD]

At the February 21, 2022 regular meeting of the Ludington School Board, the public body reversed policy on their safety mitigation plan by voting unanimously to retract their mask mandate for when the county's Covid-19 Test Positivity Rate is above 10% (as it has been for the full school year).  Four members of the board (Carlson, Nagle, Reed, and Autrey), a simple majority, have maintained the mandate over the last six months on the grounds that the science was behind their actions. 

   Ludington School Board and staff moments before vote:  (from left:  Autrey, Nagle, Reed, clerk, Carlson, super, Foster, Snyder, Ashley)

When these four members voted to rescind the mandate, they attributed it to several factors, most mouthed at the meeting and echoed in their official Facebook page:

The new mitigation plan reflects the change, 'scientifically' and 'fact' based, on these factors stated in their news release:

a) recent case numbers have declined among the community/students

b) MDHHS no longer recommends masking in schools

c) the number of hospitalizations due to Covid locally are dropping

d) the Covid vaccines are widely available now

Let's look at these factors and how they have changed since they initially created their mask mandates on August 31, 2021, when they clearly thought there were issues with the above concerns.  The following charts are from the CDC's local data, with the time interval shown at the top and the relevant scales are shown on the left.  In the week before the mandate was passed by these four board members the 7-day running average of cases in Mason County was between 10-11 at the last point they would have been able to access full data, roughly four days before the special meeting:

Now let's look at the case rate in the week before this meeting, noting that board committee meetings where the plan was looked at were held in the middle of the week, so they would have probably only have data at that point from Monday the fourteenth. 

As you can see, the county's Covid cases are now between 20-22, effectively twice the cases they had when they invoked the policy, and at a level that wasn't reached by the county until November.  When the board ignored the mandate-protesting students and the group of young ladies telling the board of their mental, spiritual, and physical issues with the forced prophylactic, the cases were still around 15.  Conclusion:  The number of cases (reason 'a') is not what led the board to change policy.

As for reason (b), the MDHHS did drop their recommendation for mask wearing in schools on February 16th, however, the board was never under any compulsion by the state health agency in August to enact their mandate; the MDHHS' original recommendation was for guiding the choice of individuals, not setting a government policy of coercion.  Conclusion:  Since they had not followed the MDHHS advice earlier, they were under no compulsion to follow it when the MDHHS' non-compulsory advice changed.

Hospitalizations, reason (c), should also be compared to when the mandate was imposed, here you can see the stats of Covid-related admissions and beds used in late August being at around 0.8 and 6% respectively.  

These stats fluctuated over the winter months more than others, but as you can see in the graphs below that 'new admissions' were twice what they were in August during the latest time the data would have been available to the board acting last night(1.7 to 0.8).  The percentage of beds used for Covid cases, in comparison, more than tripled from 6% to over 20%.   Conclusion:  Hospitalizations for Covid is not what made the school board change their policy.

Lastly, the availability of vaccines is an invalid reason to drop a mask policy meant to stop the spread of Covid-19.  Multiple data sets show that universal vaccinations seem to have a negative effect on Covid spread, meaning that it spreads easier to and from vaccinated people.  Whether vaccines make Covid infection less deadly is still unsupported, but even if it were the case, children rarely die from Covid complications even without the 'vaccines' which may arguably be more deadly to them once those numbers are compiled.  Conclusion:  Vaccine availability to children is not a valid reason for changing a policy meant to prevent Covid spread.  

The overall conclusion is that if science and changing circumstances support dropping the Ludington school mask mandate now, the science and circumstances back in late August support not adopting that mask mandate then.  It is totally political and not based on science to rescind the mandate now, just as it was political and not based on science to adopt the mandate last August.

I addressed the remaining bit of science left unaddressed in the school's news release in my public comment to the school board.  After a minute of paying tribute to George Washington and how he disliked tyranny and knew when to quit, and before sharing the wisdom of the rock group Styx in my last half minute, I shared the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) stats with the board.  Remember, their mandate depended on TPR being above 10%, effectively saying it was too dangerous to be without useless face coverings when more than 1 in 10 people being tested, test positive for Covid.  Thanks again to the CDC for supplying these graphs:

XLFD:  "...This district's Safety Mitigation Plan established in August 2021 is arbitrary power.  It established a mask mandate, which other federal, state and local governments have not done over that time.  The mandate would be in place provided that the county's test positivity rate would be above 10%.  When enacted the rate was just a little above 10%, since early January, the rate hasn't gotten below 20%, hanging out at 30% in the middle of last week when the board decided to reconsider their plan.  

If test positivity rate was the sole basis behind your masking policy, why should there even be a case for reconsideration at this point when the rate is twice as bad as it was when the plan was established?  I said it then, I say it now, that this rate was an arbitrary metric that can be raised or lowered by health care bureaucrats changing testing protocols. 

The district's mandate has been an exercise in arbitrary power, a violation of the civil liberties of the parents who believe the science that tells them that universal masking of healthy people does not prevent community spread of viruses and the science that shows prolonged masking has negative physical and psychological health consequences..."

Should one be upset at the Ludington School Board finally doing the right thing while citing several bogus reasons?  No, they should finally be happy that they finally came to their senses and reversed a Draconian policy that had no positive effects other than to alert the community that four board members should be replaced by citizens more concerned with your child's health and safety and understand your parental right to choose your child's medical decisions. 

[Willy]

Well done X. You have clearly shown that the LASD board members, at least 4 of them, have been playing politics during the Covid era. You have also revealed just how dangerous leftist thinking and ideology can be, especially when they are given power over people. Most people with common sense realized a long time ago that the mask and quarantine mandates were  dangerous to society and more so to the children. All I know is that we must vote all leftists out of offices and regain control of our freedom and liberties.  Just look what has happened since the left has taken over. From the local levels to the State and Federal levels. From the local school boards to the radical Governor and her girl friend the Attorney General and to the worst of all, the Presidency and Congress. We will keep sliding down that slope of Fascism until they no longer are in control. They cause misery wherever they go. I tried to find some information on how Michigan children have been affected by Covid. I found very little information, however I did find a chart that shows a correlation between Covid hospitalizations and the age categories of Michigan citizens. The worst treated of our citizens have been the children but they have been the least affected by Covid,

[XLFD]

Interesting chart, and you got to believe that many of the children hospitalized were not there solely for Covid-19.  The time has come to be more energized in the public square as many of our public agencies have grew rather bold over the last two years in trying to increase their power and diminish your rights.  A major problem is that most of those in government do not recognize that they have become part of that problem.