For those who claim to value science, the left-wing supporters of the school mask order seem to deliberately ignore the data, which shows that requiring students to wear masks in the classroom does not prevent the spread of COVID-19 among children. In fact, although science does not support their claims, most leftists continue to tout the benefits of masks. But not all leftists are willing to downplay the actual scientific nature of this matter.
For New York MagazineThis is not exactly a bastion of right-wing thinking. The author David Zweig asserts that the hypothetical science supporting the enforcement of masks is not as reliable as the left-wing leads us to believe. First, he proposed a large-scale study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that analyzed the spread of COVID-19 in schools.
Zweig wrote:
Some major news media reported its release by briefly restating the summary of the study: Covering up teachers who were not vaccinated at the time and using more fresh air to improve ventilation were associated with lower incidence of the virus in schools.
However, the summary missed an important factor:
It was found that distances, hybrid models, classroom barriers, HEPA filters, and most notably, requiring students to wear masks did not have statistically significant benefits. In other words, these measures cannot be said to be effective.
The author pointed out similar results found in European countries such as Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. In each of these countries, children are not required to wear masks. The article pointed out that “there is no evidence that there are more outbreaks in schools in these countries than in the United States.”
What’s more interesting is that the guidelines for wearing masks provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) conflict with CDC’s recommendations, and it was discovered that forcing students to wear masks may actually have an adverse effect on their development.
The author talked with a number of scientists and medical professionals to gain a deeper understanding of the effectiveness of the school’s instructions to wear masks, and asked why the summary excludes data, thus casting doubt on their claims that masks can prevent the spread of the virus. They said that excluding data is part of a practice colloquially called “file drawer”, which happens when researchers hide information that does not “produce statistically significant results.”
Vinay Prasad, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, explained to Zweig that this study failed to prove the effectiveness of masks “a discovery of great significance and interest.” He argued that this information “should be included in the abstract.”
The author asked a large number of experts and medical professionals to provide evidence that wearing a mask is an effective measure to slow down the spread of the coronavirus. He wrote:
Over the course of a few weeks, I also communicated with many experts — epidemiologists, infectious disease experts, immunologists, pediatricians, and a doctor who is publicly active in COVID-related matters — asking them to provide what they know The best evidence regarding mask requirements. Students are effective. No one can find a data set as robust as the Georgia results—that is, a large cohort study directly looked at the impact of mask requirements.
The problem with the data these people provided to Zweig is that each of them only measured the spread of the virus among children wearing masks in classrooms. None of them included a control group to analyze transmission among children who did not wear masks. Therefore, these specific studies cannot clearly show how the virus spreads between the two groups so that the data can be compared with each other.
Lloyd Fisher, chairman of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, pointed out that “it is very important for children to see the facial expressions of their peers and surrounding adults in order to understand social cues and understand how to interpret emotions.”
The experts and medical experts discussed by Zweig in his article are not the only ones who oppose the idea that masks are good for children.
Professor Neeraj Sood, Professor and Associate Dean of Research at the Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California, and Jay Bhattacharya, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, published an article OC register They assert that allowing children to wear masks in class will hinder their development. They wrote:
Masks have little benefit in preventing children from becoming severely ill or dying due to COVID-19. At the same time, they can disrupt learning and communication in the classroom. They may be partially effective in protecting adults from COVID infection, but since when is it ethical to burden children for the benefit of adults?
The author also pointed out that even for infected children, the survival rate is about 99.99%.
Based on this information, it is clear that the Democratic Party and the extreme left are science deniers—at least on the issue of wearing masks. The idea that the CDC would suppress information that shows that their narratives about child masks lack value is persuasive. The reality is clear: The CDC and the left want your children to wear masks whether they work or not. Otherwise, why would they hide this information?
Their decision to lie about the impact of wearing masks raises another question: What is the point of having children wear masks when they are sure that they will not reduce the spread of the coronavirus? There is no doubt that the people who promote these tasks are not trying to save lives. But it is not clear who has benefited from these useless instructions. But we may find out soon.
