The Mask Is Off: Illinois Has No Science Behind Its School Masking Mandate
Authored by Mark Glennon via Wirepoints.org,
Last week an Illinois reporter finally asked what scientific support the state has for mandating masks on school children. At the Wednesday press conference, Gov. JB Pritzker had Dr. Emily Landon, one of his top COVID policy advisors, give the answer.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has a whole web page on it, Landon answered, and she vaguely referenced some Minnesota study (which we cannot find and Landon did not identify). The video is here...
That’s it. That’s all we have ever gotten from the Pritzker Administration on its science behind masks on kids, so that is what we will look at in this column.
There was no follow up question and, as always, no reporter confronted Pritzker or his advisors with the vast evidence and expert opinion now published showing that masks on school kids have little if any value, which in any event is outweighed by harm being done to our children.
Since Illinois has blindly followed all CDC guidance on COVID, we will also look beyond the web page Landon referred to and consider other claims the CDC and Landon have made on the subject.
The CDC page Landon apparently was referring to is linked here. It’s what the Illinois Department of Public Health sent me when I asked for it and any other science they cared to offer. They also referred me to Landon directly, whom I emailed for the same, though she never responded.
Look through that CDC page yourself if you want. Go to the “Mask use” section. That’s the only portion relevant to whether masking school kids is worth it. Among the problems that should be immediately apparent:
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The studies cited on the CDC page lump masking in with a variety of other mitigation measures, rendering them useless as a measure of the efficacy of masks on children.
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All the supposed science was written before the December arrival of the omicron variant, rendering it meaningless. Omicron defeats masks far more easily because it is far more contagious than earlier variants and accounts for almost all current COVID infections.
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Most importantly, none of the material cited by the CDC attempts to weigh any supposed benefit of masks on school children against the vast harm done to them and their education.
Illinois has long followed CDC guidance reflexively and without scrutiny, yet it’s difficult to imagine how anybody following the subject affords any credibility to the CDC.
It still has never bothered to run a randomized, controlled test on masking, which is the standard scientists look for. Instead, it squelched its own study showing masks are ineffective on school kids. In November, we collected more of its suppressed evidence, distortions, fabricated studies and outright falsehoods here. They include the ridiculous earlier claim by the CDC director that masks can reduce your chances of getting a COVID-19 infection by 80%. Harvard medical school’s Martin Kuldorff retweeted a note saying “Not a single paper supports this made-up 80% figure.” The claim was “preposterous,” wrote Stanford epidemiology Professor Jay Battacharya.
Since then, the CDC has only gotten worse. To support its policy on school masking, the CDC this month released a study done in California purportedly showing mask effectiveness. It has been savaged by leading scientists. “The paper is entirely, irredeemably flawed. Its flaws are so evident that it should not have been published nor promoted,” wrote Vinay Prasad of the University of California.
“When it comes to masks, the CDC is its own worst enemy,” says a recent column in Newsweek.
“The CDC spread what amounts to misinformation in its promotion of cloth masks, which countless medical experts have said are useless against Omicron, the dominant COVID-19 variant in the United States.”
“In this case and others, the [CDC] has proven that it cannot be trusted to act as an honest broker of scientific information,” as columns in Reason have documented.
The biggest and most cited study on masking in general was conducted in Bangladesh. It was randomized and controlled. It found zero indication that cloth masks work.
Cloth masks are overwhelmingly what school kids use – by necessity because higher quality masks don’t typically fit children and are far less comfortable to wear through a school day.
Landon, however, has long been an extreme zealot on cloth masks.
Dr. Emily Landon at an earlier Pritzker press conference
“Cloth masks are our lifeline," she aggressively claimed in an earlier speech extolling cloth masks, specifically.
“So please," she said, “never leave the house without your face covering. And always put it on when you go inside another building or if you’re near other people outside. Soon, I promise, it will be as natural as wearing pants, which most of us are pretty good about.” In truth the science behind masks was questionable even before COVID, as discussed here.
Another study frequently cited by the CDC supposedly justifying masking kids was conducted in Arizona. It, too, has been ridiculed. It “turns out to have been profoundly misleading,” wrote the Atlantic. “You can’t learn anything about the effects of school mask mandates from this study” says the column, quoting a public-health economist at Arizona State University,
For a more thorough review of the why CDC mask studies prove nothing, see The Case Against Masks at School in The Atlantic. The overall takeaway from their studies, it says, is the claim that schools with mask mandates have lower COVID-19 transmission rates than schools without mask mandates “is not justified by the data that have been gathered.”
Landon earlier emphasized that the sacrifice is not just for one’s self but for others. “It’s because we have the grit and the compassion to make sacrifices for the good of our community, for people we don’t even know,” she has said.
In truth, the opposite is true regarding masking school kids. The mandate on kids is adult selfishness. Kids face no material risk from COVID, which has been long known. The only rationale for masking them would be protecting adults – if only masks worked.
Landon recently tweeted this:
” I really find it funny that people think we can just decide to be done with #covid…. We have to actually do stuff to make covid have less impact.”
That’s “funny”?
Is it funny that so many nations are “done” with COVID mandates of any kind and have dropped all COVID measures, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway?
Is it funny that states like Florida and Wisconsin, which have imposed no masking or other mandates of any kind, have had fewer COVID deaths than Illinois, age-adjusted and per capita?
Is it funny that 39 states have no mask mandates?
Is it funny that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control recommends against the use of masks for any children in primary school.
It would be funny that she thinks it’s funny, except the risks and consequences for school kids forced to wear masks are so severe. We are only beginning to understand the harm being done to children, but the evidence so far is frightening. The American Institute for Economic Research has a particularly comprehensive report on masks, and lists the following harms:
(ii) inhalation of toxic substancessuch as microplastics and chlorine compounds located in the masks (these are potentially serious risks)
(iii) CO2 intoxication
(iv) sudden cardiac arrestseen in children
(v) a reduction in blood oxygenation (hypoxia) or an elevation in blood CO2 (hypercapnia)
(vi) psychological damage
(vii) (N95 masks) a reduction in the PaO2 level, increases in respiratory rate, and increases the occurrence of chest discomfort and respiratory distress with prolonged use
(viii) dizziness and light-headedness, headaches especially among healthcare workers
(ix) bacterial and mould buildupin children’s masks that can then be inhaled
(x) anxiety and sleep problems, behavioral disorders and fear of contaminationin children
(xi) deoxygenation during surgery
(xii) potentially life-threatening damage to the lungs (e.g. Stanford engineers report that masks can make it much more difficult to breathe, estimating that N95 masks as an example, reduce oxygen intake from 5% to 20% and if worn for a prolonged period)
(xiii) as reported by Koops, facial skin infections, nose/throat and sinus infections, a change in breathing patterns.
You won’t hear any of that from the CDC, Landon or any other Illinois public health officials. They simply have never bothered to make a case comparing even alleged benefits of school masking to the harm being done.
If there’s any good to come out of this pandemic it may be the lesson our young people are learning about skepticism that must be shown toward dogmatic rule by government and supposed experts. Aside from the dead and their loved ones, it is they who have been treated most cruelly during the pandemic. And that cruelty has been deliberate, with children being been used as pawns in a mindless attempt to protect adults. May they never forget.
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