As children prepare to go to area schools this fall, they may find that their local schools have chose to force masks on them once again, or that they have yet to decide the issue.  As a parent, you must decide whether you should encourage your school board to do the right thing and do what you think is best for your child.  You may find that this puts you squarely on the side opposite of some agencies with high credentials in health.  But maybe they are not on the right side...

New Yorker Magazine Intelligencer and writer David Zweig published an article this weekend entitled:  The Science of Masking Kids at School Remains Uncertain which brings out a large CDC study that seems to have guidance within it that is being ignored by that health agency and other government agencies concerned with health policies for the next school year in Michigan and other states.  In this article we learn of the large-scale study of COVID transmission in American schools, which found:  Distancing, hybrid models, classroom barriers, HEPA filters, and, most notably, requiring student masking did not have a statistically significant benefit. In other words, these measures could not be said to be effective.

Outside the U.S., the implications of these particular findings are not exactly controversial. Many of America’s peer nations around the world — including the U.K., Ireland, all of ScandinaviaFrance, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy — have exempted kids, with varying age cutoffs, from wearing masks in classrooms. Conspicuously, there’s no evidence of more outbreaks in schools in those countries relative to schools in the U.S., where the solid majority of kids wore masks for an entire academic year and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.  To date, the characteristics of the highly transmissible Delta variant has not led them to change this calculus.

On July 9, a little more than a month after the study was published, the CDC released updated guidance for schools, including the recommendation that masks should be worn indoors by all individuals (age 2 and older) who are not fully vaccinated. Ten days later, the American Academy of Pediatrics took the guidance a step further and said that everyone in school over age 2 should wear masks, regardless of vaccination status. (The CDC later matched the AAP’s guidance.)

The study published by the CDC which indicated that wearing masks has no significant positive effect in schools was both ambitious and groundbreaking. It covered more than 90,000 elementary-school students in 169 Georgia schools from November 16 to December 11 and was, according to the CDC, the first of its kind to compare COVID-19 incidence in schools with certain mitigation measures in place to other schools without those measures.

Scientists Zweig spoke with believe that the decision not to include the null effects of a student masking requirement (and distancing, hybrid models, etc.) in the summary amounted to “file drawering” these findings, a term researchers use for the practice of burying studies that don’t produce statistically significant results. “That a masking requirement of students failed to show independent benefit is a finding of consequence and great interest,” says Vinay Prasad, an associate professor in University of California, San Francisco’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Zweig reviewed 17 different studies cited by the CDC in its K-12 guidance as evidence that masks on students are effective, and not one study looked at student mask use in isolation from other mitigation measures, or against a control. Some even demonstrated that no student masking correlated with low transmission.

“Mask-wearing among children is generally considered a low-risk mitigation strategy; however, the negatives are not zero, especially for young children,” said Lloyd Fisher, the president of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “It is important for children to see facial expressions of their peers and the adults around them in order to learn social cues and understand how to read emotions.”

Long term physical and psychological problems of school mask wearing mandates on our children may be found to be quite significant once that is comprehensively studied, unlike the virus mitigation capability of those mandates.  Anecdotally, these significant health problems appear to eclipse the insignificant benefits of mask-wearing.

Views: 297

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Pictures from this year's Suds on the Shore, the only Ludington event I know of whose acronym describes what you'll find there (SOTS).  Thousands attended, and had I been more motivated, I could have went down there for interviews of attendees to find out whether their kids were going to schools with mask requirements-- many of the larger schools in the state have went that way, but some smaller schools like Manistee have too.  If they said they had kids or grandkids going to these schools, I could then ask how their presentation to the school board went.  

But it's probably a lot more likely that they care more about their own pleasure drinking and personal liberties than they do the health and well-being of their kids, so i would likely just get blank stares or frowns on their exposed faces, leaking viruses unchecked.  

I usually like your your style and what you have to say, LL. This time I love your logic and simple rationale!

Thanks again X for starting a good discussion. As for SOTS, now that's funny! When I reviewed the definition to see if it was considered archaic, since i haven't heard the word in so long, I learned that the past tense of SOT is SOTTED as in "the habitual drunkards with whom he sotted at the local pub were mostly vagrants." I'm not against a good drink with friends or a nice social activity and people need to get out after covid lockdown but it does seem like Ludington is becoming quite socially sotted. I guess it's easier (and maybe lazier) to throw a brainless SOT party than to have some meaningful community activities that promote good culture and healthy thinking..

We reserve the right to freely use words that are archaic and obsolete here at the Ludington Torch, because many of the officials we report on appear to be both archaic and obsolete themselves.  Lake Lady and Shinblind both have an uncanny ability to tersely simplify the complex at times, that's why they are always a big hit when we hold our annual Devotees of Ludington Torch Society meeting, an event whose acronym describes exactly what you won't find in attendance.

Good article X. LL, your logic is right on the money.

Masks cannot protect people from any virus. Even the masks that are considered top of the line. The "good" masks do not stop all of the water droplets that viruses use to escape the body. What people don't understand is that out of the millions of viruses expelled from an infected person it only takes a single virus cell to infect another person. That's because the virus does not multiply itself, it's our own bodies that replicate the viruses that invade us.

Parents, don't be fooled by these leftists that want to forever keep your kids muffled with facial coverings that are useless. Remember children don't die from covid, only from existing serious conditions they may be suffering from which are exasperated  by the virus just like during any flu season. Stand up for the children.

Cloth masks are just breeding grounds for other ills, and as noted in the article, kids wouldn't be able to wear N95 style masks for a school day without suffering.  Yank your kids from schools that require masks, it's a good sign that they are not that good at teaching your kids other values you cherish.

RSS

© 2024   Created by XLFD.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service