Children Do Not Need To Be Masked!
“Does my child need to be masked outside, or even at all?”
by Nate Doromal
This is a question that many parents have wondered about during the course of the pandemic. And we are here to tell you that the answer is most definitely, NO. Read on to find out why.
The COVID pandemic has been difficult enough without adding on the additional burden of understanding the COVID science and rationales behind public health dictates. By default, Most of us choose to follow the crowd and obey the authorities without question.
Still, you might have an inkling inside of you, that question that wonders – am I doing the right thing for my child?
Here is where parental intuition can guide you. You might get the feeling that you aren’t being told the whole story, you might feel the need for more information so you can make better decisions, or you might wonder if dictates of public health are genuinely the best for your child.
As a parent, your first call of duty is to protect your child – not light your child on fire to keep other children warm. However, you should never entirely give up responsibility for your child to the experts.
In the following, here we will examine science around masks, and we will assert the case: the costs to masking a child outdoors far outweigh the benefits.
The Science Is Clear: Children Do Not Need To Be Masked
The authorities who claim your child needs to be masked in schools will do so primarily out of fear-based arguments that claim that 1) your child is in danger of COVID-19, or 2) your child is a threat to others around them. But, as we will see, both of these claims are false when looking at the nature of COVID-19.
COVID-19 Does Not Pose a Significant Risk to Children
The science says precisely – the vast majority of children deal with COVID-19 just fine. According to the UK data, the odds of a child dying from COVID-19 are akin to being struck by lighting.
UK Professor Robert Dingwall, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG), stated: “The risk of death in children is about one in five and a half million and they’re rather more likely to die in road accidents or even from lightning strikes than from the virus.”
The CDC corroborates such an assessment in its data:
Moreover, science has already acknowledged children’s increased ability to fight off COVID-19. In a Nature article“How kids’ immune systems can evade COVID,” Columbia university immunologist Donna Farber stated, “Children are very much adapted to respond — and very well equipped to respond — to new viruses.”
Children’s immune systems mount an effective and quick response that essentially de-activates the COVID-19. As a result, when exposed to the SaRs-CoV-2 virus, the vast majority of children experience a mild case or do not exhibit any symptoms at all.
Children Are Not Significant Spreaders of COVID
To address the second claim that children are a threat to those around them, it appears that this claim is unsubstantiated when looking at the actual evidence.
A study of schools in Germany found that very few children had antibodies to COVID, which contradicted the notion that COVID was spreading via schools. In fact, Reinhard Berner from the University Hospital of Dresden said “Children may even act as a brake on infection.”
This finding was corroborated by the UK data. In a survey of more than 1 million children attending pre-school and primary school in the UK, only 70 children were affected by COVID. It is helpful to keep the absolute probabilities in mind – only 0.01% of these open educational settings had an outbreak.
The data is consistent – children are not a significant driver in spreading COVID. In a Huffington Post article “Why You Shouldn’t Worry About Kids Catching Covid In The Playground,” epidemiologist professor Sarah Lewis from the University of Bristol said…
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