In Asheville City Schools and many others across the U.S., the current policy is that “face coverings will be required indoors by all individuals.”
This is detrimental and does nothing to combat COVID spread — it is the opposite of “following the science.”
Even the biggest COVID hawks (e.g., frequent CNN guest Dr. Leana Wen) have now admitted that “cloth masks are little more than facial decorations.” On these masks, gaps are 5,000 times the size of virus particles (on surgical masks, up to 1,000 the size) — indeed, [British engineering lecturer] Colin Axon noted that masks were “just a comfort blanket.” …
With the near-zero benefit of masking in mind, we should “follow the science” and weigh the costs of all-day masking for kids: It’s uncomfortable, inhibits learning and impairs social interaction and growth (consider how many of your favorite memories involve people’s faces — all of them?).
Kids are at very low COVID risk to begin with. An unvaccinated child’s risk with COVID is the same as a vaccinated, healthy 30-year-old. The risks posed by RSV and flu are much greater, and we never made them wear masks for them. What’s more, children over 5 now have the choice of getting the vaccine!
So: Let’s actually “follow the science” and give our kids some relief!
— Max Peck
Columbus
Editor’s note: Wen’s full Dec. 20 tweet regarding faces masks reads: “1) First, wear a high-quality mask. Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations and should not be considered an acceptable form of face covering. The U.S. should require (& distribute) medical-grade surgical masks to be worn in crowded indoor spaces.”
With or without the editors note – it is shameful the MTX would lend any credence to this writer. Period.
Sure, Granpap, squash them thar dissenters…..no need for the readership to cypher anything out for themselves…
It is I, Max Peck, who wrote the letter. (Thanks for giving me the respectful title of “writer” – I don’t deserve it!) What did you think was shameful / incorrect in the content of the letter?
Note that its most important info – the massive Bangladesh mask study, which proved the uselessness of surgical/cloth masks in preventing Covid spread – was edited out of the letter, for whatever reason, prior to its being printed in Mountain Xpress.
Thanks for any feedback.
Hi Grandad,
I am the writer of the letter. Can you tell me what I’m wrong about in my letter, besides that its publication is shameful?
Thanks for your feedback,
Max Peck
Would this help the discussion? https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/10/commentary-what-can-masks-do-part-1-science-behind-covid-19-protection
Thank you for the info. What do you suggest for an off-ramp for kids masking? None seems to have been suggested nor implemented.
Yeah, well, watching insurrectionists try to overthrow Democracy by bludgeoning human beings with the American flag caused me some discomfort, but I survived…
Hi Robert, can you tell me the connection between “insurrectionists…overthrowing Democracy” and putting cloth on kids’ faces for 7 hours per day, 5 days / week?
Mr. Peck, I’d say that he cannot provide you a logical connection – only a conflation. I doubt that he’d know an insurrection if it bit him on the ankle. Anti-Mandate = Anti-Vax/Anti-Science and all that….
Oh yes, Phillip, I have become familiar with this method of stigmatizing and squashing dissent.
Anything that differs in any way from (constantly doing 180s and self-contradictory) corporate press / big pharmaceutical company narrative = “anti-vaxx” or “anti-science” or “racist” or “insurrectionist”.
If any of the labels are able to stick, then your argument need not be addressed, and the status quo remains.
Hence any pushback against nonsensical mandates being, as you said, conflated somehow with “insurrectionist” rioters in DC. It doesn’t matter that there’s no connection; only that I am successfully painted as unsavory.