A CPL Briefing Paper Masking Children (PDF)
July 2021
Child Protection League recognizes that COVID 19 is a real and highly transmissible virus. It has been 18 months since the first cases of COVID19 were diagnosed in the United States and our families and children have experienced great suffering. Yet, like everyone else, we thought by now reliable data would have been collected, analyzed, and reviewed by our top medical professionals and organizations
so that coherent and logical health policies could be developed moving forward.
Unfortunately, parents and children continue to be subjected to a schizophrenic “masking” merry-go-round and a deluge of conflicting information. CPL would like to review what is known about Covid 19 and its risk to children. For the purposes of this release, our focus will be primarily on data specific to MN. According to the Minnesota COVID 19 Situation Response as of July 29, 2021 here’s what we know:
- Children are at virtually no risk of dying or experiencing serious health outcomes if they contract COVID 19. According to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) data, 131,625 MN children ages 0-19 have contracted COVID 19. Three children have died in that age group. This is a death rate outcome of .0000262%. The CDC’s own data finds that children ages zero to twenty have a 99.997% survival rate for COVID 19.
- According to MDH data for hospitalization 36,948 patients ages 0-100+, diagnosed with COVID have been admitted to the hospital, with 7489 being admitted into the ICU. The MDH appears to not provide publicly viewable tables showing how many of those children were hospitalized, but with a death outcome of .0000262%, it can be extrapolated with a certain degree of confidence that the vast majority of children in this age group are not experiencing serious symptoms. Senior Director of Infection Prevention and Control Patsy Stinchfield from Children’s Minnesota and an adviser to the CDC on vaccines, indicated the same during an MPR interview. She stated, “Well, it’s very, very small for kids to be positive” and that “severe COVID in children does happen, but it is very rare.”
If children are “rarely” positive, it is only logical they will rarely be “super spreaders” of COVID 19. If children are at virtually no risk of contracting or spreading COVID 19 or experiencing severe symptoms and complications, what is the risk/benefit ratio analysis of forcing healthy young school children to mask all day long? Shouldn’t the benefit to the child clearly outweigh the amount of risk?
What do we know about masking?
Since nearly the entire world population embarked on universal masking of healthy people in 2020, there has been a significant uptick in mask mouth. Extended mask wearing contributes to a whole host of gum and mouth issues which are especially dangerous for developing children. Mask mouth: What Causes It?… Additionally, when children are breathing through a mask, they are restricting the flow of oxygen intake and increasing CO2 levels in their blood which leads to their bodies seeking ways to compensate.
A June 30, 2021 Polish study, Experimental Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Content in Inhaled Air With or Without Face Masks in Healthy Children A Randomized Clinical Trial, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that within just three minutes, the level of carbon dioxide present in the air being breathed in by school children wearing masks is six times higher than the legal limit. The report goes on to state “We suggest decision-makers weigh the hard evidence produced by these experimental measurements accordingly which suggest that children should not be forced to wear face masks.”
In January of 2021, LetThemPlayMN conducted a survey which discovered that 2,500 Minnesotans reported their child or they themselves experienced dizziness and shortness of breath while playing wearing a mask. The survey also found that 14 children collapsed and 11 needed emergency care as reported by CBS Minnesota News.
In a proactive move, a group of parents from Gainsville, Fl sent 6 masks to the University of Florida’s Mass Spectrometry Research and Education Center for testing. The submitted masks had just been freshly washed before they were worn for 5-8 hours by children ages 6-11 and one adult. The Report results were shocking. “Five masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and fungi including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria. No viruses were detected on the masks although the test is capable of detecting viruses.” In all, the lab found 11 “alarmingly dangerous pathogens on the masks.”
The long term social and emotional impacts of masking healthy children pose significant unknowns, but the known harms are legion. Parents and teachers are reporting their children have experienced headaches, rashes, acne, vomiting, cancer sores, lip sores, tooth decay, strep throat, pneumonia, and brain fog. Teachers report masks also inhibit their students’ ability to hear, comprehend, concentrate and learn.
As reported in the Scientific American, Masks Can Be Detrimental to Babies’ Speech and Language Development, young children acquiring verbal skills rely heavily on facial expressions and lips. When these vital verbal cues are literally masked off, it creates confusion, uncertainty, and insecurity which they are too young to understand.
It is time to follow the science. After months of nearly universal mask mandates worldwide, The World Health Organization in December 2020 admitted in Mask Use in The Context Of Covid-19 on page 8, there is “limited and inconsistent scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of masking of healthy people…” Their study concluded that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to preventing
spreading of illness.
When the CDC and the WHO can’t even agree and the highly respected Journal of the American Medical Association is forced to retract the study mentioned above for reasons that appear less than “scientific,” perhaps we need to be far more skeptical of the “experts” – especially those who stand to gain power, money, and influence. Don’t let the voice of the highly politicized American Academy of Pediatrics drown out the thousands of equally qualified doctors and practitioners in the field who are saying masking healthy children is a form of child abuse.
Even Dr. Fauci, in his leaked emails, confirmed the virus particles are so small masks are ineffective in stopping COVID. He admitted Wearing A Mask While Fully Vaccinated Was Political Theater, not based on science, but appearances. His new position that fully vaccinated people should start wearing masks again indoors is a tacit admission the COVID 19 shots don’t protect the vaccinated against reinfection.
Think about the message children have been hearing for over a year. They have been terrorized into believing that if they didn’t wear masks, they might kill grandma and grandpa, their teachers, their families and friends. They were SELFISH if they didn’t obey and were even told to scold or tattle on classmates who were not wearing their masks properly. All of it was hyperbole with no science and no data to support it. We may never know what forced masking has done to the psyche of millions of American children who have been living in fear that they were potential killers.
The right to breathe is fundamental and basic to all human life. According to all available data, logic, and lived experience, the psychological, emotional and physical health risks of masking healthy children far exceed any demonstrable and provable benefit. “Just in case” scenarios do not merit sweeping public health mandates that actually harm children.
With many school districts around the state again planning to force their K-12 students to mask in the face of growing opposition from parents, we encourage parents to immediately contact their school boards. Children should not live with perpetual anxiety and fear about a virus that poses virtually no danger to them. Literally almost zero danger.
If your school plans to force healthy children to mask indefinitely, we encourage you to find educational alternatives that will protect the health and well-being of your children. There is plenty of evidence that the public education system is fully “woke,” but fundamentally broken. Forced masking without convincing data is yet another symptom.
Ironically, COVID 19 enabled millions of parents and school children to experience “home education” for the first time in their lives. Many parents found private and homeschool options incredibly vibrant, academically challenging, and very exciting for their children.
And the best part? They could SEE smiles.