Mask Mandates for Young Children Are a Power Trip Without Scientific Support
The United States is one of the only countries in the world where children under the age of 5 are required to wear masks in many places. It’s one of the only countries where children under the age of 12 are still wear masks in school.
In places like the UK, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Italy and Australia, kids are free of mask requirements in the classroom. Because the CDC recommends masking for ages 2 and up in the U.S., the majority of public school districts in the country continue to require them. Thankfully, fewer daycares and preschools do — but plenty are still forcing toddlers into them.
It simply doesn’t make sense – and appears to be a power trip for some. New York Magazine reported that there is “no evidence of more outbreaks” in schools in the countries listed above, despite the vastly different masking policies. Not only that, the World Health Organization only recommends masks for individuals older than 12 and UNICEF advises not to mask children under 5. So why are toddlers still getting kicked off airplanes and crammed into masks against their will?
There’s plenty to showcase why this is unnecessary. The New England Journal of Medicine reported that wearing a mask outside of a health care facility “offers little, if any, protection.” Oxford Academic, in a section titled “Clinical Infectious Diseases,” reported that for cloth masks, there “is no evidence of protection…when used repeatedly without adequate sterilization.”
My 5-year-old wears a cloth mask from 7am-2:30pm and I’m pretty sure it’s not adequately sterilized on the hour. Of course we wash them daily, but they are soiled and damp by the time he gets home. You can’t convince me those dinky cloth masks, pulled up and down, sneezed in and coughed on all day by kids, are protecting them from anything much.
But it makes people feel safer — even when the politicians who enforce the mandates choose to break them at parties and private events on the regular.
If everyone were wearing N-95 masks, which the CDC says filter out 95% of airborne particles, perhaps masking children would make a little more sense. Given the minimal protection of cloth masks and the low rate of spread or symptoms among children (they have resulted in .001% of all COVID-related deaths), the current mask mandates are little more than window dressing and over-regulation.
Pro-child maskers so committed to “the science” refuse to acknowledge the data of masking children — or the many other factors that matter in the masking debate. As Dr. Marty Makary wrote in the Wall Street Journal:
“Facial expressions are integral to human connection, particularly for young children, who are only learning how to signal fear, confusion and happiness.
Covering a child’s face mutes these nonverbal forms of communication and can result in robotic and emotionless interactions, anxiety and depression.
Seeing people speak is a building block of phonetic development. It is especially important for children with disabilities such as hearing impairment.”
In a recent Tik Tok video, a woman shared her humiliation of being unable to communicate at a restaurant due to masking regulations. The restaurant manager refused to take his mask down and accused her of lying about not being able to hear. She’s an adult. Imagine how children with disabilities or special needs are being affected in daily life.
With such a small risk for children getting the virus — or getting sick (it’s widely reported that children usually have mild symptoms and recover quickly) — any push to put children in masks for many hours a day is tantamount to purporting their own hypochondria on them.
As Karol Marcowicz writes in the New York Post:
“Study after disregarded study has shown that even unvaccinated children are safer than many vaccinated adults. Kids don’t spread COVID the same way. Schools aren’t infection hot spots. Kids rarely get sick from COVID and, when they do, it’s no worse than a cold.”
The hysteria over kids is manufactured. In some geographic areas, kids have been lucky enough not to experience the oppression of masking all day at school, but many more are still dealing with it. Many parents tell me their kids aren’t bothered by the masks and wonder why some of us are so upset about it all. That’s not the point. If the data shows they aren’t necessary or effective for young children (as it does), then it’s not okay to force them to wear them.
If the regulations and restrictions have taught us anything, it’s that the government and those in charge want to control things — even things that don’t make sense. This is a dangerous precedent and yet, millions of citizens have bought into the lie that big government knows what’s best for your family — even better than you do.
When it comes to our kids, we know best. Let parents decide if their child should wear a mask and get back to learning & educating.