In 1993, an Amtrak passenger train derailed near Mobile, Alabama and plunged into the Mobile River.  Would-be rescuers later found a dead young mother still gripping her small daughter (also dead) by the ankles.  Apparently, she had tried to hold the child above the rising water line for as long as possible, even while she herself drowned.  

In many parts of the country, including where I live in Gwinnett County, Georgia, the adults running our public schools — board members, administrators, and even many teachers — are doing exactly the opposite.  They are standing on our children's shoulders to save themselves, literally if slowly suffocating the children with their anti-scientific mask mandates solely to allay their own fears.  

What are they afraid of?  They're afraid of getting COVID and dying, even though most of them are at very low risk and have been vaccinated anyway.  They're afraid of "liability," a catch-all legal phrase that has long provided cover for feckless bureaucrats.  They're afraid of powerful teachers' unions, even in right-to-work states like Georgia.  And they're afraid of the disproportionally loud and strident voices of a relatively small number of mask cultists in our midst.  

But...but...but they're just following CDC guidelines, right?  Perhaps.  Yet the CDC is not a governing body.  It does not make laws.  Specifically, no one in Gwinnett County or anyplace else voted for the CDC to write policy for our schools.  That is the job of the elected school board members — one they are currently shirking as they fail to address the new realities of a swiftly receding pandemic.  

Furthermore, the CDC's recommendations run counter to the science — even, in some cases, the agency's own science.  Normally, I wouldn't include numerous citations in a column, which is meant to be interesting as well as informative.  Citing sources is dull and boring.  But since this issue is such an emotional one, with people shrieking about "the science!" who clearly have no clue what the science actually says, I thought it might be prudent — as well as helpful to those wishing to join Team Reality — to go ahead and lay some science on you.

Speaking of Team Reality, I have borrowed heavily here from the Twitter feed of Omnipotent Moral Busybody (@OBusybody), who describes himself as "one of the few remaining politically neutral social scientists."  If you want to know the truth, I highly recommend OMB's feed, along with those of Scott Morefield (@SKMorefield), Jennifer Cabrera (@jhaskinscabrera), Dr. Andrew Bostom (@andrewbostom), among others.  (Also El Gato Malo on Substack.com, who was kicked off Twitter for consistently and fearlessly telling the truth.)

Without further delay, here are the salient points along with hyperlinked citations:

• Masking children is unnecessary due to the characteristics of COVID-19.  Children are at very low risk from the disease and rarely spread it to adults.  (Kamenetz, "What parents can learn from childcare centers that stayed open"; Munro & Faust, "Children are not COVID-19 super-spreaders"; Yung, et al., "Novel coronavirus transmission risk in educational settings.")   
• Asymptomatic spread of COVID-19 is not common.  (Hui, et al., "Guidance for school reopening"; cdc.gov Covid Data Tracker, May 7, 2020; Gao, et al., "A study on infectivity of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers.")   
• Spread in schools is not common.  (Furlong, "School reopenings in Europe reduce virus concerns — mostly"; Fourcade, "School children don't spread coronavirus, French study shows.")   
• With children, masks are more likely to be contaminated and less likely to be worn or handled correctly.  (Hui, et al., "Guidance"; Lee, "Do face masks work? A note on the evidence"; bin-Raza, et al., "The use of masks and respirators to prevent transmission of influenza: A systematic review of the scientific evidence.")   
• Masking children can cause severe health issues as well as social and mental harm.  (Lazzarino and Hamer, "Important potential side effects from wearing masks"; Borkow, et al., "A novel anti-influenza copper oxide containing respiratory mask"; Rancourt, "Masks don't work: A review of science relevant to COVID-19 social policy.")  

A few points about the above sources before I conclude.  First, nearly all of them are from medical or scientific journals or from left-leaning news sites.  Only one comes from an outlet anyone might describe as "right-wing."  Second, you may have noticed that all of them are from last spring and summer.  Sure, I could have used more up-to-date sources — of which there are many — but my point is that all of this has been known for almost a year.  A year! 

And third, this is just the tip of the iceberg, source-wise.  I could cite dozens more studies and reviews if I had the space.  Luckily, as a concerned parent or community member, you can do your own research and arm yourself with the facts. 

The real question is, why haven't school board members and administrators done that research — especially when, as I just pointed out, it's been available since last spring?  Besides irrational fear, I can think of only two other possibilities: either they're incompetent or they have a hidden agenda.  I hope to be proved wrong at Gwinnett County's next school board meeting, when members vote unanimously to lift the mask mandate, effectively immediately.  But I won't hold my breath — even though that would undoubtedly prevent me from getting COVID-19.

Photo credit: WWW.VPEREMEN.COM, CC BY-SA 4.0  license.

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