Tag Archives: children’s mask mandates

One Judge Blocks Tyranny

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On November 10th, Cowboy State Daily reported that U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty struck down a vaccine mandate for federally-employed preschool workers, and a masking requirement for the preschoolers, in 24 states, including Wyoming.

The article reports:

U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty compared the vaccine and masking mandate to “tyranny.” 

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny,” wrote Doughty, quoting James Madison in his ruling against the mandate.

Doughty’s order, filed Sept. 21, forbids the U.S. Health and Human Services department from requiring Head Start preschool employees, classroom volunteers and contractors working with children and families to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19. The mandate also required preschoolers ages 2-4 to wear masks in preschools nationwide.

But Doughty’s injunction of the law only applies in 24 states, including Wyoming, which was among the states that sued the U.S. Health and Human Services Department for dispatching the rule.

The article concludes:

The federal bureaus argued, conversely, that they had the right to mandate vaccination and masking because HHS is allowed to “modify” its own programs, because Head Start staffers check on preschoolers’ health throughout the course of their duties, and because the HHS secretary can implement standards he “finds to be appropriate.”

The court rejected the bureaus’ arguments.

Doughty wrote that Congress gave the Department of Health and Human Services the right to tweak its programs, but not to make changes of “vast economic and political significance.”

“There is nothing in (laws defining the bureaus) which would allow Agency Defendants to make medical decisions for employees and volunteers, and/or to require 2, 3, and 4-year-old students to wear masks the majority of the day,” wrote Doughty.

He also noted that since there were no additional funds given for the weekly testing of exempted workers, a required provision under the department’s rule, the states or local workers would have had to cover the costs of that requirement.

This is only a small part of the battle to get freedom back for Americans. Remember, the vaccine is only approved for emergency use, and Congress has begun to fight back against a continuing state of emergency (article here). The scientific evidence shows that neither basic cloth masks or the vaccine works. Vaccine passports will be the next way our government attempt to control Americans and deprive them of the freedoms to which we have become accustomed.

School Mask Mandates Are Ending In Four States

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On Tuesday, NewsMax reported that governors in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Oregon will be ending statewide mask requirements in schools by the end of February or March. The mask mandates are ending because the number of Omicron cases has drastically declined.

The article reports:

The changes also come amid a growing sense that the virus is never going to go away and Americans need to find a way to coexist with it. And it was noted by some observers that blue-state leaders were moving to act in favor of relaxing COVID restrictions ahead of a midterm election cycle in which several polls suggest Dems may incur heavy losses, perhaps losing control of one or both chambers of Congress. One reason Republicans are gaining traction: concern over overly restrictive and protracted pandemic mandates.

So is this politics or science?

The article notes:

In a statement, the union (New Jersey Education Association, the state’s biggest teachers union) noted that trends show COVID-19 heading in the right direction, and added: “It is appropriate for Gov. Murphy to allow local districts to continue to require masking in communities where that is prudent based on local conditions.”

Nationwide, new COVID-19 cases per day have plunged by more than a half-million since mid-January, when they hit a record-shattering peak of more than 800,000. Cases have been declining in 47 states over the past two weeks, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Also, the number of Americans in the hospital with COVID-19 has fallen 28% since mid-January to about 111,000.

Deaths are still running high at more than 2,400 per day on average, the most since last winter, reflecting a lag between when victims become infected and when they die.

The article notes that the end of the mandates does not necessarily mean the end of masking:

In New Jersey, it is unclear how many and how soon the state’s 600-plus school districts might end the wearing of masks.

In Paterson, the state’s third-biggest city, the school system will take time to consult with administration officials, principals, parents and staff, said district spokesperson Paul Brubaker.

Melissa Alfieri-Collins, a mother of two who disagrees with mask mandates in schools, saying she prefers “choice,” called the governor’s decision good news. But she raised concern that districts might keep mask rules in place.

“For this reason, parents need an opt-out option for when and if districts do this,” she said.

Connecticut will also allow school districts to retain the mandate. It’s unclear if Delaware will follow suit, but the governor said he wanted to give school districts time to consider a local mandate.

I suspect we will see other states suspend their mask mandates as we get closer to the  mid-term election.

Ending Mask Mandates

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On Tuesday, The Western Journal posted an article about a recent recommendation from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The article reports:

With mask mandates for students and teachers increasingly under fire, one of the major children’s hospitals in the country is recommending that facial coverings no longer be required.

Dr. David Rubin, director of the PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said masks should not be considered necessary, WCAU-TV reported Monday.

“We are in a very different moment in this pandemic,” Rubin told the station.

Rubin suggested that it is finally time to start getting back to normal in the school setting, particularly since cases of COVID-19 omicron variant among children are more on the level of other seasonal viruses.

…In January, Rubin also advocated for fully re-opening schools and getting kids back into normal school settings, NPR reported.

He pointed to the fact that children are not as susceptible to the virus and that for the sake of mental health and normality, they should be in regular school settings.

“The spectrum of illness is very consistent with what we take care of each year, and we’re actually seeing fewer kids in the ICU proportionally this phase,” Rubin told NPR.

He also argued that the harm being done from keeping kids at home or in abnormal settings is now outweighing the good of keeping them from getting COVID.

As expected, he has gotten pushback from the teacher’s unions.

The article notes:

The school district also just introduced a stricter mask policy than it had. According to KYW-TV, the district announced last week that cloth masks, which had previously been acceptable, would no longer be enough. Students and staff would now be required to wear N95, KN95 or KF94 surgical masks.

Since children are not at high risk for complications from Covid, why are they the ones being required to wear masks? Is the masking of children nothing more than a security blanket for teachers who fear the disease?

The article concludes:

Philadelphia Health Commissioner Dr. Cheryl Bettigole defended the policy by citing the fact that many adults across the city have not yet been vaccinated and said children are doing fine with masks.

“With children of all ages…they’re quite resilient. They do very well with masking. Of course, we would all love to get rid of those masks,” Bettigole said.

“I understand the CHOP PolicyLab perspective, but when we look across the city, we still see, we have 250,000 adults who are still unvaccinated,” she added.

We know that children are not the ones in danger from the disease and are not the spreaders of the disease, so why are we masking them?

Florida Gets It Right

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A friend of mine posted the following chart on Facebook:

So let’s look at some of the policies of Governor DeSantis and the Florida legislature that resulted in this success:

Florida has outlawed vaccine mandates

Allowing parents to make decisions about masking their children

Florida was also one of the first states to open after the ‘two-week’ shutdown

Florida prioritized vaccinating the vulnerable

Florida set up mobile locations to treat people in the early stages of the coronavirus

Florida made an effort to balance public health and economic needs. Obviously, they did a good job.

The Numbers Tell The Story

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Any parent can tell you that young children are very efficient spreaders of disease. It doesn’t matter what disease–they will spread it. It has to do with the fact that they have not yet learned the concept of personal space or some of the basic health rules. There is a reason most of the childhood acquired diseases are acquired in childhood. However, even though the coronavirus does not seem to be focused on the younger Americans, there are those who insist on putting masks on them. There are a number of reasons why that is a bad idea, but let’s just look at the science.

Yesterday Townhall reported the following:

NEW PEDIATRIC CASES:

New COVID-19 cases for children ages 5-17 – the vast majority of the school-aged population – have decreased 79% in the month of September, in the 54 Florida counties where school districts have no masking policy or are following state law by honoring the parental opt-out rule.

For comparison, COVID-19 cases for children 5-17 in the 13 districts that imposed forced-masking in schools have decreased 77%, on average.
 
POSITIVITY RATES:

The 54 districts with opt-outs or no mask policy have seen an average decrease of 65% in positivity from week ending Aug. 19 (when school started) to the week ending Sep. 30.

The 13 districts that broke the law to impose forced-masking have seen an average decrease of 67%.
 
That is to say, the data for this school year to date shows no impact of forced masking in schools on pediatric COVID-19 prevalence. This is not surprising, since there were no statistically significant differences in case rates in forced-masking versus mask-optional schools during the 2020-21 school year in Florida.

The article also notes:

Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to decline across the state, despite largely maskless schools and no governmental vaccine mandates (via press release).

The article concludes:

As usual, the hard data supports sanity and normalcy not just in America’s schools, but for everyone else as well.

It is quite possible we are seeing the end of this epidemic. I am not so sure we will ever see the end of the government’s quest to use fear as a tool to acquire more power.