A group of more than two dozen congressional Republicans is demanding answers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as to why children aged two and older must wear face masks despite overwhelming evidence they possess extremely low risk from coronavirus infection.
The CDC recommended in March 2020 that every American over the age of two wear a face mask, just weeks after medical experts advised against the use of masks entirely. Since then, hundreds of states and localities have based their own mask policies on the CDC’s guidelines, and President Joe Biden made these guidelines law on federal property and interstate and public transit with an executive order in January.
“The implementation of these recommendations has had serious consequences for some Americans,” read a letter from the Republicans to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky sent last Thursday. The legislators cited stories of families being booted off planes and blacklisted by the airlines for not masking their toddlers and the struggle by some parents to mask their disabled children.
Th letter identifies the CDC’s recommendation as among the most stringent face-mask requirements in the world. In Switzerland, children under the age of 12 do not have to wear masks. In France and the U.K., children under the age of 11 are exempt, so why such a low age in America, especially considering children’s low susceptibility to COVID? Republicans even highlighted comments from National Institutes of Health Director Anthony Fauci, who once observed, “If you look at the data, the spread among children and from children is not really very big at all, not like one would have suspected.”
The lawmakers requested that the CDC explain in detail, along with providing the studies it examined, as to how it came to its conclusion that children as young as two to should wear face masks, and which developmental milestones the CDC had considered when setting a minimum age requirement. Republicans are also inquiring whether the CDC is remaining up to date on the latest science related to childhood COVID-19 transmission, and if it has a plan and willingness to update its recommendations. The signatories asked Walensky to provide the answers by May 6.
Walensky has not yet responded to the request, and was not questioned on the masking guidance during a virtual briefing she took part in on Friday.
While some Republican-run states — Florida, Arkansas, and North Dakota, for example — have banned mask mandates, much of the country follows the CDC’s guidelines. Moreover, even when a state lifts a mask mandate, some local school boards still push it onto school districts — such as Palm Beach County school district in Florida, and numerous school districts in Arizona and Utah.
Parents whose young children are forced to wear masks all day in preschools and schools have spoken out against mask mandates, and the frustration is growing. Many parents are worried about the emotional, physical, and cognitive development of their children, all of which can be negatively impacted by masking.
A recent video of a Georgia mother went viral for grilling her local school board at a meeting earlier this month. “Every one of us knows that young children are not affected by this virus, and that’s a blessing,” she said. “But as adults what have we done with that blessing? We’ve shoved it to the side, and we’ve said, ‘We don’t care. You’re still going to wear a mask on your face every day.’… It’s April 15, 2021, and it’s time. Take these masks off of my child,” she thundered, to the applause from other parents.
“I want you to imagine yourself as an elementary student, six years old, 10 years old,” a Michigan parent said to a local school board. “You cannot see a smile on your teacher’s face. You cannot see your classmates’ smile. You cannot hug a teacher when you feel sad.… You may have a headache every day. You may experience rashes on your face. You may feel sad, but you don’t know why. This is how our children feel every day, and it needs to stop.”
“My youngest son has reported increased anxiety and difficulty breathing,” a Kansas parent complained. “This is a child with epilepsy whose seizures can be triggered by increased physical or psychological stress. These are the short-term consequences. What are the long-term consequences of prolonged mask use in school age children?”
A growing body of evidence supports the conclusion that masking children is as absurd, illogical, nonsensical, and potentially dangerous as trying to stop “every case of COVID” or “stopping COVID at all costs.” Masks are not needed for children owing to a near-zero risk of them dying from COVID, according to CDC data. So why keep masks — an old symbol of slavery and dehumanization — on children’s faces?
