America is experiencing a new COVID wave, fueled by a new variant. This is to be expected, as COVID is a seasonal virus. Astoundingly, we are also currently witnessing a resurgence of restrictions, mandates, and even school closures -- despite abundant and clear evidence about the harm inflicted by such closures, in addition to a great deal of scholarship that debunks the efficacy of mask mandate policies. And yet:
The recent upturn in COVID-19 cases in some regions has spurred a handful of entities around the country to reinstate mask mandates, reigniting the debate over what place masking requirements have in an era of living with the coronavirus. Earlier this week, Hollywood movie studio Lionsgate asked its employees to wear masks on certain floors of its facilities in Santa Monica, Calif., in response to a few staff members testing positive for COVID-19. Kaiser Permanente began to require staff, patients and visitors to wear masks at its facility in Santa Rosa, Calif., this week in response to a spike in cases. Upstate Medical University in New York announced a similar decision last week for two of its hospitals. Schools including Morris Brown College have issued mask mandates for their campuses, with the Atlanta-based school reinstating masks as a two-week precautionary measure.
Two school districts in eastern Kentucky have canceled in-person classes this week after a rise in illnesses including Covid-19, respiratory viruses and strep among its students and staff, according to local officials. https://t.co/ih9VJOp3yb
— CNN (@CNN) August 25, 2023
In-school COVID transmission is strikingly low, as opposed to in communities writ large, and kids are at exceptionally low risk for severe infections. For otherwise healthy, school-aged children, hospitalizations or deaths from COVID were effectively zero. We know about all the learning loss. We know about the social isolation. Any additional school closures related to COVID are an utterly inexcusable, anti-science attack on the well being of affected children. They should be treated as such The evidence continues to pile up:
New study published this week in Science Advances:
— Kevin Bass PhD MS (@kevinnbass) August 26, 2023
"Overall, school closures largely explain the deterioration of youth mental health over the first pandemic wave." pic.twitter.com/MbYXhwcaql
A new study of data in Germany finds school closures played a major role in the deterioration of youth mental health during the pandemic. Keep in mind that schools were closed far longer in most areas of the United States. https://t.co/KR4muhTlUP
— AG (@AGHamilton29) August 27, 2023
That second point is an important one. When it came to COVID school policies, Faucism represented American exceptionalism of the worst kind, relative to the rest of the western world (and nearly the whole world). A generation of children are suffering the consequences, which are particularly acute in cities and states where The Science was fetishized and weaponized over the actual science. It was a disgraceful chapter, and warnings that certain power-hungry fanatics or neurotic busybodies would do it all again if they could doesn't feel to hypothetical these days. In some places, they are doing it all again. May I remind you of the conclusion of the definitive, gold-plated study about mask mandates?
The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous. “There is just no evidence that they” — masks — “make any difference,” he told the journalist Maryanne Demasi. “Full stop.” But, wait, hold on. What about N-95 masks, as opposed to lower-quality surgical or cloth masks? “Makes no difference — none of it,” said Jefferson. What about the studies that initially persuaded policymakers to impose mask mandates? “They were convinced by nonrandomized studies, flawed observational studies.”
These observations don’t come from just anywhere. Jefferson and 11 colleagues conducted the study for Cochrane, a British nonprofit that is widely considered the gold standard for its reviews of health care data. The conclusions were based on 78 randomized controlled trials, six of them during the Covid pandemic, with a total of 610,872 participants in multiple countries. And they track what has been widely observed in the United States: States with mask mandates fared no better against Covid than those without.
And yet, such requirements are making a comeback in some places. This is the correct response:
There will be NO mask mandates in Texas.https://t.co/qFbfxuenhR
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 25, 2023
Finally, with renewed and updated vaccine mandates circulating, especially at colleges and universities (which is totally backwards, as these are institutions filled with young, overwhelmingly healthy people, for whom side effect risk likely outweighs fleeting protection), I'll leave you with this:
Students attending the 100 colleges requiring a Covid vax/boost even if you recently had Covid, please share this definitive study with your college leaders:https://t.co/lcl6PLJZOc
— Marty Makary MD, MPH (@MartyMakary) August 26, 2023