Hello members of the Board,
My name is S—— S——-, I’m a parent of two elementary-aged children who attend school here in Norman. I’m writing to ask that you please remove the mask mandate in our schools as soon as possible. I’ve gone along with the mandates in spite of the mounting evidence showing that masks are having no effect on the spread of COVID-19, but several things that my children have told me regarding mask policy in their school have alarmed me to the point that I feel that it’s time to make masks optional for these kids.
The elementary schools in Norman require that children wear their masks during physical education class, even during strenuous physical activity like running. This is absolutely unacceptable. It’s over-the-top hypochondria and it’s creating a much more dangerous situation for children than the virus itself. I’m told by both my children that the PE teacher refuses to allow the students to take off their masks while performing these exercises. This is absurd and very dangerous.
They’ve also mentioned other worrying details about day-to-day masking at school: other students are constantly setting their masks down on the table or wherever, masks falling on the ground only to be placed back on the child’s face, wearing them into the bathroom or even setting them down in the bathroom, constantly touching and adjusting the masks, et cetera. Kids are not wearing masks in a proper or hygienic way in the slightest. Breathing constantly throughout the day in these masks is also leading to a dangerous build-up of bacteria as well, negatively affecting their health.
I believe that all of this is for naught, and that the data shows that masks are not stopping or slowing the spread in the slightest.
The lack of effectiveness can be traced to the gaps between the masks and our faces, and also that COVID-19 is under 1 micron in size, which most certainly will not be filtered by a cloth face mask. A recent and very thorough paper published in Aerosol Science and Technology found that gaps as small as 2% reduce filtration by up to 70%. We’ve seen mask-wearing in the real world long enough to know that most people are walking around with gaps far larger than 2%:
To visualize the lack of effect that school mask policies have on community spread, here is an insightful graph from Florida comparing case rates in counties based on mask requirements in schools:
A large study, “Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers : A Randomized Controlled Trial”, was conducted last spring/early summer in Denmark that looked at the protective effect of masks and found no difference between those who wore masks regularly and those who didn’t.
In 2019 the World Health Organization published a meta study of the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical health measures on the spread of “influenza-like illness”, and found no difference between mask groups and control groups.
Mask compliance in Sweden has hovered well under 10% for the past year, and their experience with COVID-19 has been relatively mild compared to other nations with very high mask compliance.
If you’ll excuse the commentary in the below graph, I think it illustrates that none of the non-pharmaceutical interventions that have been attempted have had any effect on the spread of the virus.
Prolonged mask-wearing, while conferring no benefit, does extract a high cost.
Many of the paper surgical masks contain dangerous micro particles that are being inhaled throughout the school day. Please take a look at these papers on the dangers of inhaling the micro-fibers that reside in many of the masks that kids are wearing:
“Nanofibre health risk quantified“
The masks also have the potential to permanently deform the ears of developing children: “Can the Elastic of Surgical Face Masks Stimulate Ear Protrusion in Children?”
Aside from the physical dangers, there is an obviously destructive psychological component as well. Children simply need to see the faces of other children. They need to not feel that they are in constant mortal danger lest they remove their mask. I think that we’ve failed our children completely in this regard.
I work in data analysis, and I’ve followed the data very closely regarding who is affected by COVID-19 and who spreads it. Children are not in danger from COVID-19, something we should all know by now. They also don’t spread the virus, as the following studies have shown:
“Spread of SARS-CoV2 in the Icelandic Population“ The authors used genome sequencing to contact trace COVID-positive individuals and found no incidence of children spreading the virus to adults.
“Role of children in household transmission of COVID-19”. Authors here looked at 107 pediatric cases and their 248 household contacts, and found no instance of a child infecting an adult.
A UK study, “Association between living with children and outcomes from COVID-19: an OpenSAFELY cohort study of 12 million adults in England”, also found that adults under 65 and living with children were less likely to die from COVID-19 than those who didn’t. Those older than 65 were no more likely to die than the rest of the population.
Sweden’s children have remained in school full-time since last Spring, without masks. None of that nation’s 1.9 million children have died, and only a handful have been hospitalized. The teachers have experienced equal-to-lower incidence of infection and hospitalization as the broader Swedish population.
We have multiple effective vaccines that are readily available to anyone who wants one, along with myriad treatment options for those who happen to experience a severe case of COVID-19. It’s estimated that over 100 million Americans have developed natural immunity to the virus, and almost that many have been fully vaccinated. COVID cases and hospitalizations have plunged by over 90% in the last few months.
With over 35% of Oklahoma’s schools currently successfully operating without mask mandates, and more districts voting to make masks optional, I would hope that the members of the Norman school board would review the science that I’ve included here and vote to make masks optional for Norman’s schoolchildren. I believe that children today deserve to have a positive school experience, free of the unnecessary and oppressive pandemic restrictions that dramatically diminish their school experience.
Thank you for your time.
