One of my friends asked me about my opinion on a fairly controversial issue, should children be wearing masks even as mask mandates end? Since that question deserves a longer response than it is convenient on social media, I figured a blog post was in order. Plus I wouldn't have to search for a blog topic today, which is always the most difficult thing about blogging.
My friend works in a school in Illinois and yesterday the state lifted its mask mandate for children in schools due to a judges order. He reported that outside of special ed kids that were exempt anyways, only two students are without masks right now.
So, this raises a couple of questions. First, should children be wearing masks in the first place? And after that, why are students and parents still masking their children?
I generally think that masks are ineffective. But it depends on the kinds of masks we are talking about. I think the home made cloth masks are pretty much completely useless. Wearing one isn't going to protect you from anything. Disposable surgeon's masks aren't much better and provide minimum protection. What they are for is for preventing others from getting sick. That is why you would see people in Asia wearing them, they were wearing them to prevent other people from getting sick from whatever cold bug they had. The only ones that I would expect to stop the virus are the N-95 masks or better.
But keep in mind that these masks only work if people wear them correctly. They have to be fitted properly, you have to keep them on and it has to cover both your nose and mouth. Given how often I see adults wearing masks totally wrong I would not be surprised if the situation is even worse with kids.
I also think that masks can be a health threat themselves. If you keep wearing the same one day after day it can make you sick as bacteria build up. I personally find them difficult to breath in if I am doing any kind of activity but that might just be because I have deviated septum.
But the biggest reason against kids wearing masks? I think it interferes with their development. Small children need to see faces to learn emotions and how to speak. Masks don't allow them to do so with their peers and teachers. Making kids wear masks for two whole years had to have had a major effect on these kids and the sooner we get rid of them the better. I really hope that I am wrong about this and we won't see slowed development of language and other social skills due to these masks but effects might not manifest for some time.
Speaking of development, childhood is when the immune system develops. It's when children get exposed to common viruses like the ones that cause the cold and flu. Kids need to be exposed to germs when they are kids because if they don't they can develop allergies. Masks aren't very effective but I do think that they have an effect and that isn't a good thing if it prevents normal childhood illness. I think we are going to see an entire generation of kids with severe allergies due to masking.
The other aspect of this is if the Coronavirus is an actual threat against children. The Coronavirus is not like influenza where it primarily kills the very old and very young. Young people are almost completely immune to the virus, it usually only kills the young if they are very sick with something else. Children are dramatically more at risk from the flu compared to the Coronavirus.
Keep in mind that that is for the Wuhan strain of the Coronavirus. The current dominant strains are Omicron and so called "Stealth Omicron", and they are hardly a threat to anyone. They are even less of a threat to children. Omicron probably does kill a few people, but so does the flu, and we don't shut down the world for that. The current strains are nothing like the original one and aren't even in the same ballpark as Alpha and Delta.
In short I think that masking kids is a solution in search of a problem. Kids aren't going do get sick and die from the Coronavirus, if they were we would have seen it by now. They gain little from wearing masks and have little reason to even want to prevent the virus. And the threat to ordinary development can't be understated.
As for the second question, why are parents making their kids still wear masks? Well, I don't think most parents know the above. They listen to the mainstream media who is still very irresponsibly hyping the virus as the second coming of the Spanish Flu. They aren't able to get any other information as social media is censored and you really have to do a deep dive to get this information.
As insane as it feels to me, some people are still deeply afraid of the virus. I personally am not. I've been exposed double digit times and worked through the worst of the initial wave, when the virus was actually a threat. And I didn't get sick once, as far as I am aware. I did have a couple of mild colds last year but never got tested so I might have gotten it. At my work we had 500 cases before they stopped counting but zero deaths But I do have to point out that a lot of people have indeed died from the virus and if you lost someone I could see why you would be afraid and want to keep your kids masked.
Most of the rest is politics. I think that the cloth surgeon's mask has become a lot like the Make America Great Again hats. Just as people don't wear the MAGA hats to keep their heads dry or to keep the sun out if their eyes, people are wearing masks because it sends a signal to others. Mostly it tells others that they are the "good people". The ones that follow the orders of the government and somehow still trust Dr. Fauci. It's not just to protect children it's to indoctrinate them.
Part of it too is that the places that have lifted mask mandates are largely red states. The people pushing masks are doing it in part just to avoid having to admit that Governors like Ron DeSantis and Glenn Younkin might have a point. Since we haven't seen disasters in cities, states and countries where they have lifted mask mandates it's not about evidence, it's just about not wanting to listen to people they disagree with politically.
I don't have kids myself, I wouldn't be having them wearing masks anymore at school. If those kids were young I'd even go so far as pulling them out of school. It might have been justified when we didn't know about the Coronavirus, but now that we know that masks aren't that effective and that the virus isn't a threat to children I don't think it is justified anymore. These mandates should be lifted.
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