Letter: Thanks to local schools for alternatives in COVID-19 era

Kudos to Niko Kyriakou for some of the most fair-minded pandemic reporting I’ve seen yet in the Mountain Xpress for the article “Face Time: Some Local Schools Reject COVID Advice From Health Officials” [Oct. 13]. As we struggle over the issue of whether or not schoolchildren should be mandated to wear masks, it’s helpful to have a writer who is unafraid of adding some basic facts to the mix, such as a COVID-19 survival rate for children of over 99.9% and the fact that zero — yes, zero — deaths of children due to the pandemic have occurred in Buncombe County. The fact that the Buncombe County school board has once again mandated masks for this school year in the face of a 0% mortality rate and a myriad of known harms from mask wearing is outrageous.

Buncombe County Schools Superintendent Tony Baldwin rationalized the mandate by saying “universal” mask wearing would mean that even if a student tests positive, there would be no need for quarantines. But wearing masks does not inhibit the free flow of virus particles, which travel on finer particulate much more than droplets. Virus particles easily pass through both cloth and surgical masks. From loss of social connection to depression … wearing of masks poses very serious health risks. We are ignoring these dangers for a 0% mortality rate? Really?

The rush to give the COVID-19 genetic modification injections to children is beyond shocking. I personally know of two deaths and four permanent disabilities occurring within weeks of the injections. The CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System [as reported on the independent website OpenVAERS] now shows around [17,000] reports of death following the injections and over [800,000] adverse events, including over [26,000] disabled. … Why would we subject our beloved children, with only a 0.01 chance of mortality, to these dangers? Have we all forgotten that the government, Big Pharma and the media are chronic liars?

So it was a great relief to hear that at least a few local schools are protecting children against what I firmly believe are the real dangers of our time — thank you, thank you, thank you to the Appalachian Academy of Therapeutic Arts, the Faith Covenant Christian Academy, the Haywood Christian Academy and Classical Scholars. Jaydee Azavari of AATA stated in the article that she believes that masks and other recommendations (social distancing, contact tracing, vaccines, etc.) from the StrongSchoolsNC toolkit actually do more harm than good, and I couldn’t agree more. Many people know this, but those who give their heart and soul to building an alternative, like Ms. Azavari, are rare.

It takes courage, heart and a lot of hard work to go against the tide of belief that masking, injections and other dangerous actions — reinforced daily by lies and fearmongering from the media — are the only way to protect our children. Thanks to the courage and clear thinking by administrators of the above schools, at least a few children will escape the net, for which I am profoundly grateful.

— Denise Mewbourne
Leicester

Editor’s note: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers research that mask wearing has “no significant adverse health effects for wearers.” (avl.mx/acr)