This finding isn't exactly news to regular readers, as we've been flogging the evidence and data – actual science – for many months. But with useless-to-harmful school mask mandates on their last legs, it's important to drive the facts home over and over again, lest any of the adult harmers ever consider turning back the clock if and when new variants arise or surges occur. Masking children in schools simply is not a scientifically-supported mitigation strategy for combatting COVID. The latest vindication of that policy view comes from a large study (monitoring hundreds of thousands of students) out of Spain:
MASK STUDY, SPAIN: "Face mask mandates in schools not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 incidence or transmission, suggesting this intervention not effective. Instead, age-dependency was most important factor" on transmission risk in school. CDC data on age-stratification below. https://t.co/hy6ffU4g0g pic.twitter.com/jezlsh8TSx
— Monica Gandhi MD, MPH (@MonicaGandhi9) March 8, 2022
Dr. Nicole Saphier reacts:
This NEW study shows masks mandates in schools were not associated with lower CoV2 transmission.
— Nicole Saphier, MD (@NBSaphierMD) March 8, 2022
Also of note, the lowest cases, hospitalization and deaths were in those 1-4yes.
Yet Americans are still masking the lowest risk populations with data arguing against it. https://t.co/S4UKOfxmpT
She is, not so subtly, taking aim at the mayor of New York City – who recently made this nonsensical statement while defending the city's truly insane policy of maintaining mask requirements for pre-schoolers, but not others:
ICYMI: @NYCMayor tells @patkiernan he needs parents of kids under 5 to trust him and said they will be allowed to remove masks soon.
— Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) March 7, 2022
He said he’s telling kids: “When you have big brothers and sisters, sometimes they do it first to make sure it’s safe for you.” #MorningsOn1 pic.twitter.com/qb7WZBIJZ4
This has no connection to science or data. New York City is continuing to mask the members of society who are at the lowest risk from this virus, to begin with – with no upside, and myriad downsides. Like this, and this. And, as chronicled in The New York Times this week, like this:
The kindergarten crisis of last year, when millions of 5-year-olds spent months outside of classrooms, has become this year’s reading emergency. As the pandemic enters its third year, a cluster of new studies now show that about a third of children in the youngest grades are missing reading benchmarks, up significantly from before the pandemic. In Virginia, one study found that early reading skills were at a 20-year low this fall, which the researchers described as “alarming.” In the Boston region, 60 percent of students at some high-poverty schools have been identified as at high risk for reading problems — twice the number of students as before the pandemic, according to Tiffany P. Hogan, director of the Speech and Language Literacy Lab at the MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston. Children in every demographic group have been affected, but Black and Hispanic children, as well as those from low-income families, those with disabilities and those who are not fluent in English, have fallen the furthest behind. “We’re in new territory,” Dr. Hogan said about the pandemic’s toll on reading. If children do not become competent readers by the end of elementary school, the risks are “pretty dramatic,” she said. Poor readers are more likely to drop out of high school, earn less money as adults and become involved in the criminal justice system.
There is heavy overlap between the COVID Safetyists responsible for evidence-free, harmful extended school closures and unscientific school mask mandates, and those who profess great concern about "equity" and "racial justice." How's that going? I discussed these issues on my radio show, and I'll leave you with that monologue:
