Former FDA commissioner admits: 'Cloth masks aren't going to provide a lot of protection'



Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb admitted that cloth masks do not provide a high level of protection against COVID-19. Gottlieb — who sits on the board of directors of Pfizer — delivered his insight on face masks as well as stating that the omicron is a milder variant during an appearance on "Face the Nation."

"Cloth masks aren't going to provide a lot of protection, that's the bottom line," Gottlieb told host Margaret Brennan on Sunday morning.

"This is an airborne illness," he continued. "We now understand that, and a cloth mask is not going to protect you from a virus that spreads through airborne transmission."

"It could protect better through droplet transmission, something like the flu, but not something like this coronavirus," explained Gottlieb, who was a clinical assistant professor at New York University School of Medicine before becoming the 23rd FDA commissioner in 2017.

At this stage of the pandemic, cloth masks don't provide much protection against COVID-19, according to @ScottGottliebMD.pic.twitter.com/pvX5McVnzX
— Face The Nation (@Face The Nation) 1641139038

Last January, Gottlieb shared a CNN opinion piece titled: "America needs better masks to fight Covid-19."

Part of the reason is that new Covid-19 variants are more transmissible – meaning you are possibly more likely to be infected with even less exposure time and from greater distances than before. As Dr. Walensky herself mentions, ongoing studies are evaluating the efficacy of cloth masks in light of new variants. Without definitive answers, the precautionary principle – erring on the side of caution – should be invoked before more people become infected. Secondly, because -- regardless of variant -- the virus is still transmitted by both droplets and aerosols, the latter of which are best trapped by electrostatic charges found in N95 caliber masks.

In November 2020, Gottlieb wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled: "Some Masks Will Protect You Better Than Others."

In the article, Gottlieb noted that at the beginning of the pandemic, health agencies advised the public to use cloth masks because "medical masks were in short supply."

"A cotton mask offers far less protection than a surgical mask," he wrote, adding, "An N95 or equivalent mask offers the best protection and, if used properly, will filter out at least 95% of infectious particles."

During Sunday's "Face the Nation" interview, Brennan asked Gottlieb if schools should mandate COVID-19 booster shots for 12- to 15-year-olds.

"Well, look, I certainly don't think schools should be mandating boosters," he replied. "I think this should be left up to the discretion of parents and their physicians."

"You know, it's going to depend on the individual circumstance," Gottlieb said. "What is the risk that the child's facing? Are they in a setting where they're more likely to come into contact with the infection? Do they have some underlying health conditions that put them at increased risk of bad outcomes?"

Gottlieb stressed that schools need to remain open.

"I think the imperative needs to be to try to open schools," he stated. "What you're saying by closing schools preemptively, and even colleges, is that you can't possibly control outbreaks in those settings. And I just don't think that that's the case. I think with the tools we have with prudence, with the knowledge we have about how to control this infection in those settings, you can do pretty- a pretty good job of trying to control large outbreaks, certainly within the classroom."

Gottlieb said the Omicron variant "does appear to be a milder strain of coronavirus and we also have a lot of immunity in the population."

"There is a very clear decoupling between cases at this point in hospitalizations and ICU admissions," he said. "There's a very clear, as I said, decoupling between cases and hospitalizations and does appear now based on a lot of experimental evidence that we've gotten just in the last two weeks, that this is a milder form of the coronavirus appears to be a more of an upper airway disease and a lower airway disease that's good for most Americans."

"The one group that- that may be a problem for his very young kids — very young children, toddlers who have trouble with upper airway infections, and you're in fact seeing more croup-like infections and bronchiolitis in New York City among children," he added. "So, that could be a challenge for young kids, and we are seeing rising hospitalizations among that pediatric segment."

Gottlieb believes that the current wave of the Omicron variant will begin to decline in most of the U.S. by the end of February.

"Now this is a big country, this will affect different parts of the country at different points in time," he said. "But if the UK is any guide, London's already peaking. If South Africa is any guide. This is about a two-month epidemic wave from start to finish. And so, parts of the country that were affected earlier, like New York, probably are going to start to peak in the next two weeks, other parts within the next four weeks. So, I think certainly by the end of February, we will be through this if businesses need a guide of when prevalence is going to start to decline in terms of school."

Last month, Gottlieb predicted that 2022 "is going to be a transition year." He said we will likely "go from a pandemic into a more endemic phase."

Gottlieb says Omicron appears to be a "milder form" of COVID-19, but pediatric danger remains www.youtube.com

'Sit down Karen!': Video shows woman wearing mask on her chin attacking elderly man mid-flight for not wearing a mask



A woman was taken into FBI custody following a physical confrontation on board a flight on Wednesday. The mid-flight kerfuffle allegedly escalated over an argument about face masks despite both passengers not wearing a mask or not wearing a face covering properly.

A viral video — which has been viewed nearly 6 million times — shows a squabble between a woman and an elderly man on a Delta flight from Tampa Bay, Florida, to Atlanta, Georgia, according to the Daily Mail.

The video shows the woman wearing a mask on her chin and standing in the plane's aisle mid-flight. She is getting in the face of the older man who is sitting down in his seat.

"Put your f***ing mask on," the woman demands, to which the man replies, "I'm eating."

He then threatens to dump a drink on her head, and she challenges the man, "Stand your a** up."

The man rebuts, "Sit down Karen!"

The pejorative term "Karen" is slang for a middle-aged white woman who is angry, obnoxious, and entitled.

A flight stewardess attempts to calm the woman to no avail. A male flight attendant asks the woman, "Do you want the police to meet you on the ground?"

The woman asks, "What about him?"

She screams at the man, "Mask up!" Then she orders the flight crew to make the man put on his mask.

The two passengers exchange insults, and then the fuming woman punches the man in the face.

The man reacts by saying, "Now you're going to jail! That's assault! You're going to jail! As soon as we get to Atlanta, you're going to jail!"

The woman appears to wind up for another punch, but a flight attendant restrains her.

The woman screams at the man and then spits in his face.

"That's double going to jail," the man yells.

A flight attendant uses the beverage cart to push the woman away from the man.

The man tells the flight crew, "Look, she punched me. She slashed my face."

The woman interrupts by shrieking, "Put your f***ing mask on!" She once again instructs the flight crew to tell him to put his mask on.

The woman is then escorted to the back of the plane.

The video then jumps ahead to after the plane landed at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

Another female passenger explains, "She went crazy on the airplane — punched this man in the face, spit on him, scratched him." She added that the detained woman "poured hot water" on her leg.

The Atlanta Police Department issued a statement regarding the "disturbance" involving an "unruly passenger on a Delta flight" that led to "the injury of fellow passengers and Delta employees."

"When the aircraft arrived at the gate, officers were able to meet with exiting passengers who advised that the suspect, Ms. Patricia Cornwall had caused a disturbance while in the air," authorities noted. "Based on the statements gathered and visible evidence, officers detained Ms. Cornwall and contacted the on-call FBI agent."

"The officers then relocated with Ms. Cornwall to the domestic Atlanta Police precinct where FBI agents responded and took custody of Ms. Cornwall," the statement read.

A spokesperson for Delta issued a statement regarding the incident to WSB-TV.

"Flight 2790 from Tampa to Atlanta was met by law enforcement after an unruly customer disturbance during flight. Situations like these are rare for the vast majority of our customers and Delta has zero tolerance for unruly behavior at our airports and aboard our aircraft," the statement said.

In January, the Federal Aviation Administration announced a "zero tolerance policy" in response to an uptick in disruptive airline passengers. Last week, the FAA partnered with the Transportation Security Administration to share information of unruly passengers who could be removed from the TSA's PreCheck program.

Content Warning: Graphic content:

Delta flight from Tampa to Atlanta got crazypic.twitter.com/I9BZUKv3LB
— ATL Uncensored | Atlanta News (@ATL Uncensored | Atlanta News) 1640395664

Study finds high carbon dioxide levels in kids who wear face masks, concludes: 'Children should not be forced to wear face masks'



Many concerned parents are asking, "Should children wear masks?" A new scientific study may provide an answer. The newly released study found that kids shouldn't be forced to wear face masks because they can inhale unacceptable carbon dioxide levels after only three minutes of mask-wearing.

The findings, which were were published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, examined the carbon dioxide levels of 45 children in good health, ranging in age from 6-17, and with an average age of 10 years old. The clinical trial, titled "Experimental Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Content in Inhaled Air With or Without Face Masks in Healthy Children," claimed that the case for governments to mandate schoolchildren to wear masks is "weak."

The authors of the study noted that normal open air has approximately 0.04% carbon dioxide by volume (400 parts per million), and the German Federal Environmental Office states that the limit for closed rooms is 0.2% (2,000 ppm), and anything higher is unacceptable, Fox News reported.

The study found that the carbon dioxide levels of children wearing masks after three minutes averaged between 13,120 and 13,910 parts per million, more than six times the maximum carbon dioxide exposure.

"This is because of the dead-space volume of the masks, which collects exhaled carbon dioxide quickly after a short time," the study said. "This carbon dioxide mixes with fresh air and elevates the carbon dioxide content of inhaled air under the mask, and this was more pronounced in this study for younger children."

The results of the clinical trial said carbon dioxide levels tended to increase the younger the children were, and a 7-year-old's levels measured at 25,000 ppm.

The researchers said that high carbon dioxide levels can lead to impairments attributable to hypercapnia, which is a buildup of carbon dioxide in your bloodstream. WebMD says acute hypercapnia can cause delirium, paranoia, depression, and confusion. Severe hypercapnia can cause hand tremors, sudden muscle jerks, seizures, headaches, nausea, vision problems, varicose veins, and a coma if left untreated.

The participating children were wearing surgical and filtering facepiece 2 (FFP2) masks. The authors noted that children wear masks in school for about 270 minutes on average, or 4.5 hours.

"We suggest that decision-makers weigh the hard evidence produced by these experimental measurements accordingly, which suggest that children should not be forced to wear face masks," the researchers concluded.

The paper published in JAMA Pediatrics cited a review that said there was ample evidence that wearing masks has adverse effects. The review, which referred to 44 "mostly experimental studies," stated: "We objectified evaluation evidenced changes in respiratory physiology of mask wearers with significant correlation of O2 drop and fatigue (p < 0.05), a clustered co-occurrence of respiratory impairment and O2 drop (67%), N95 mask and CO2 rise (82%), N95 mask and O2 drop (72%), N95 mask and headache (60%), respiratory impairment and temperature rise (88%), but also temperature rise and moisture (100%) under the masks."

The letter cited a large-scale survey of nearly 26,000 children in Germany that found 68% of the participating minors had problems when wearing nose and mouth coverings. Some of the issues the kids encountered from wearing masks include irritability (60%), headache (53%), difficulty concentrating (50%), less happiness (49%), reluctance to go to school/kindergarten (44%), malaise (42%) impaired learning (38%), and drowsiness or fatigue (37%).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that everyone over the age of 2 should wear face masks. The CDC's "Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools" says there is a "pathway for schools to provide in-person instruction safely through consistent use of prevention strategies, including universal and correct use of masks and physical distancing."

YouTube takes down video of Georgia mother who slammed school board's mask mandates for 'medical misinformation'



A viral video of a Georgia mother's defiant rebuke of the Gwinnett County Board of Education's mask mandates was taken down by YouTube Thursday after the social media platform said it spread medical misinformation.

In a statement made to Fox News, YouTube said video of Courtney Ann Taylor's impassioned demand that Atlanta's Gwinnett County school board stop requiring her 6-year-old daughter and other children to wear masks violated the company's Community Guidelines because she said COVID-19 doesn't affect children.

The video was posted on YouTube by Tom Elliott, an editor for Grabien, who received notice Thursday that his post was taken down.

"YouTube has clear Community Guidelines in place to prevent COVID-19 medical misinformation. In accordance with our policies, we removed this video for including the claim that children are not affected by COVID-19," a spokesperson for the company told Fox News.

During her speech, Taylor said, "every one of us knows that young children are not affected by this virus."

People age 0-17 can catch and transmit COVID-19 but are more likely to experience mild or no symptoms. Fox News reported there have been about 300 deaths attributed to COVID-19 for people in that age group, a fraction of a percent of the nearly 600,000 total fatalities during the pandemic.

But YouTube's policy is to remove videos that contradict the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidance, which states that children can be affected by COVID-19.

"While fewer children have been sick with COVID-19 compared to adults, children can be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, can get sick from COVID-19, and can spread the virus that causes COVID-19 to others," the CDC said. "Children, like adults, who have COVID-19 but have no symptoms ('asymptomatic') can still spread the virus to others."

A video must provide additional context to refute statements that contradict what the CDC says to avoid enforcement action by YouTube's content moderators.

There are more copies of Taylor's April 23 speech on YouTube that have not yet been removed.

In her remarks, Taylor said mask mandates for children were forcing them "to carry a burden that was never yours to carry."

"We chose you to make decisions that would be in our children's best interest," Taylor told the school board. "Enforcing 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9-year-old little children to cover their noses and their mouths — where they breathe — for seven hours a day, every day for the last nine months for a virus that you know doesn't affect them! That is not in their best interest!"

Findings from preprint study suggest masks had little effect on slowing COVID-19



Preliminary findings from a new study that has yet to be peer-reviewed raise questions about the efficacy of mask-wearing and mask mandates in slowing the spread of COVID-19.

After the onset of the pandemic, scientific experts recommended that people wear face coverings to mitigate the spread of the virus, which can spread via respiratory droplets. No fewer than 40 states followed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on mask-wearing and adopted statewide mandates requiring residents to wear masks in public.

Researchers at the University of Louisville sought to show that statewide mask mandates and mask use were associated with lower COVID-19 case growth rates in the United States. Instead, they were surprised to discover that while "80% of U.S. states mandated masks during the COVID-19 pandemic" and while "mandates induced greater mask compliance, [they] did not predict lower growth rates when community spread was low (minima) or high (maxima)."

The study relied on CDC data to calculate total COVID-19 case growth and mask use in the U.S.

"We estimated post mask mandate case growth in non-mandate states using median issuance dates of neighboring states with mandates," authors Damian Guerra and Daniel Guerra write.

There are important limitations to note before discussing the study's surprising findings. First, the researchers only analyzed state averages and did not assess counties or localities. Second, data collected from the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) COVID-19 model, which is used to estimate mask-wearing, is subject to survey bias. Third, the study considered confirmed and probable COVID-19 infections to measure spread, but did not assess factors like hospitalizations and mortality.

"Future work is necessary to elucidate better predictors of COVID-19 spread," the authors write.

Acknowledging those limitations, the study concluded that mask use did not observably slow the spread of COVID-19.

"There is inferential but not demonstrable evidence that masks reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission," the researchers wrote, citing animal models and small case studies. They also pointed out that "masks have generally not protected against other respiratory viruses," citing several studies.

"Our findings do not support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 transmission rates decrease with greater public mask use," the researchers said. "Masks may promote social cohesion as rallying symbols during a pandemic, but risk compensation can also occur."

The study noted mask-wearing comes with the following risks:

Prolonged mask use (>4 hours per day) promotes facial alkalinization and inadvertently encourages dehydration, which in turn can enhance barrier breakdown and bacterial infection risk. British clinicians have reported masks to increase headaches and sweating and decrease cognitive precision. Survey bias notwithstanding, these sequelae are associated with medical errors. By obscuring nonverbal communication, masks interfere with social learning in children. Likewise, masks can distort verbal speech and remove visual cues to the detriment of individuals with hearing loss; clear face-shields improve visual integration, but there is a corresponding loss of sound quality.

Statewide mask mandates enacted in the United States were "poor predictors of COVID-19 spread."

In summary, mask mandates and use were poor predictors of COVID-19 spread in US states. Case growth was independent of mandates at low and high rates of community spread, and mask use did not predict case growth during the Summer or Fall-Winter waves. Strengths of our study include using two mask metrics to evaluate association with COVID-19 growth rates; measuring normalized case growth in mandate and non-mandate states at comparable times to quantify the likely effect of mandates; and deconvolving the effect of mask use by examining case growth in states with variable mask use.

The CDC currently promotes face masks as "a simple barrier to help prevent your respiratory droplets from reaching others" and states "studies show that masks reduce the spray of droplets when worn over the nose and mouth."

Reached for comment, Dr. Guerra told TheBlaze he would prefer to discuss the implications of his findings after the peer review process is completed. He noted that "a number of leading epidemiologists have provided us with positive ad hoc critiques and suggestions" and that he hopes the preprint study "will stimulate productive conversation on this topic."

(h/t: Townhall)

Nancy Pelosi Stuns Press, Defies CDC & Forces Mask-Wearing | DIRECT MESSAGE | Rubin Report

Nancy Pelosi Stuns Press, Defies CDC & Forces Mask-Wearing | DIRECT MESSAGE | Rubin Report

School bus driver caught on video slapping 10-year-old girl for not wearing mask properly; student pleaded, 'I get sick from masks'



A school bus driver has admitted to slapping a 10-year-old girl for not wearing her face mask properly. The Colorado school bus driver caught on video slapping the young girl has since been fired and faces multiple charges.

A surveillance camera caught Bertram Jaquez on camera smacking a student in the face over a mask dispute. The video shows the bus driver confronting the girl at her seat on the vehicle. She allegedly moved the mask under her nose because she said, "I get sick from mask[s]," according to a statement the girl wrote about the incident that occurred in Fremont County.

Other children on the bus told the unnamed girl to put her mask back on. The girl wrote that she "yelled at them and said you shut up your [sic] not involved in this." When she didn't put her mask on correctly, the other kids informed the bus driver.

The bus driver told the child to put her mask all the way on, but she refused. "Out of reaction, I slapped her once," Jaquez said in a written statement to the school district.

In her written statement to the school district, the 10-year-old girl said, "The bus driver slapt [sic] me."

Jaquez was immediately placed on administrative leave after the video surfaced and is reportedly no longer employed by the school district.

"Our school community is experiencing a very unfortunate situation," a spokesperson for the Fremont County School District said in an email. "We have had a bus driver strike a child over the child not wearing a mask on the bus."

KKTV published the statement from the Fremont County School District on the incident:

We believe it is never okay to lay a hand on a child. The District responded quickly to the situation by placing the driver on administrative leave so that we could fully investigate the incident. Local police were involved during the investigation as well as us being in contact with the child's family. The driver's action justified termination of employment, as it goes against District policy and our values. We are very saddened by this incident. Our goal every day is to transport students safely to school and back home, but that can only happen when everyone, including students and staff, follows the rules. We are currently working to identify next steps to help our drivers with strategies designed to support a safe ride to and from school.

The disturbing incident was investigated by the Fremont County Sheriff's Office. Jaquez reportedly faces misdemeanor charges, including harassment, assault causing injury, and child abuse.

Content warning: Disturbing video:

This ugly school incident stemming from face coverings comes less than a week after a video of a Wisconsin teacher verbally abusing a student for not wearing a mask went viral. The teacher was caught on video calling the high school student a "jerk" and a "dummy."

Teacher reportedly placed on leave after she was caught on video scolding student for not wearing a mask: 'You're a jerk!'



A Wisconsin high school teacher was reportedly placed on administrative leave after she was caught on video scolding a student for not wearing a mask. The viral video shows the teacher berating the high school student, calling him a "jerk" and a "dummy."

The video allegedly shows a Poynette High School teacher lambasting the student, "I don't care if you're vaccinated, you little dink. I don't want to get sick and die."

"There's other people you can infect just because you're vaccinated," the teacher is heard angrily saying. "You know what? You're not a special person around here."

"You should hear about how everyone talks about you around here," the unidentified teacher told the teen before insulting him, "You're a jerk!"

"And you need to have respect for other people in your life," the teacher lectured. "You're not a big man on campus, quit walking around here like you have a stick up your butt."

The 28-second viral video was posted on Twitter, where it has over 1 million views in less than 24 hours.

AMERICA AAAAAAAA 😭😭💀 https://t.co/RNkpQfR6Iq

— Simone Hanna (@simonelhanna) 1621017337.0

Wisconsin talk show host Vicki McKenna shared a longer clip of the encounter with the caption, "This is the video I talked about on the air today of the WI teacher verbally abusing a student for not wearing a mask while he ate lunch."

"People don't like you! I don't like you," the teacher told the student, and said people are "pretending" to like him.

The student replied, "In a few years, look at me, and then you'll be like, 'Oh hey, I was wrong about him.'"

The teacher responded by laughing off the student's suggestion, "No, in a few years I know exactly where you're going to be because people with your attitude don't get very far. You treat people like crap, and people who treat people like crap don't get very far."

The teacher, who claims to have worked at the high school for 27 years, called the student a "dummy" and told the teen that he is "one of the most disrespectful kids I've ever seen grace the halls of this high school."

The Poynette School District released a statement on Facebook.

"The School District of Poynette is aware of an incident that occurred today, May 11th, 2021, involving a teacher and student at the Poynette High School," Poynette District administrator Matt Shappell said. "The District is initiating an investigation and the teacher involved has been put on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation."

In an email to the Portage Daily Register, Shappell said face masks are required in school buildings and on district-sponsored transportation, but declined to say what the consequences are for students who don't wear masks.

Rachel Maddow says she needs to 'rewire' herself to not see unmasked Americans as 'threats' after new CDC guidelines



While many people were ecstatic that the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines could mean a step toward returning to a normal life, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow found an issue with the new CDC recommendation and stereotyped unmasked Americans as "threats."

"If you're vaccinated, it's OK to take off your masks now, indoors and out," Maddow said of the CDC's new coronavirus guidance, and then asked her liberal audience, "Really? Are you sure? How sure are you?"

"This is a big change," the leftwing cable host said on Thursday's "The Rachel Maddow Show." "We're going to have changing norms, and we have to give each other space to have feelings as we go through what's going to be a big change that's going to create a lot of visceral reaction in a lot of us just in our day-to-day lives. Just big day, big change."

Maddow then explained how the unmasking of fully vaccinated Americans would affect her personally.

"Part of it is that I feel like I'm going to have to rewire myself so when I see somebody out in the world who doesn't have a mask I don't instantly think, 'You are a threat,'" Maddow declared. "Or, 'You are selfish' or, 'You're a COVID denier and you definitely haven't been vaccinated.' I mean, we're going to have to rewire how we think about each other because the CDC's guidance."

"That means as we change as a country we're going to look at each other differently and unwire our preconceptions about what a mask or lack of a mask means," Maddow said.

This is a remarkable artifact of our times. https://t.co/aWgQnycBu5

— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) 1620995561.0

Maddow interviewed CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky during her show, where the TV host again talked about her trepidations about the new guidelines from the health agency.

"I am very nervous about what you said today. It is hard for me to imagine myself, you know, waltzing into the Stop and Shop tomorrow morning and not wearing a mask," Maddow told Walensky. "I just feel I'm not wired that way anymore and it still feels – it still feels risky."

Walensky responded to Maddow by telling her to believe the science.

"There's an extraordinary amount of evidence now that demonstrates the vaccines are working in the real world, in cohort studies, in care facilities, across all states, that these vaccines are working the way they worked in the clinical trials," Walensky told the cable talk show host. "Importantly, there's also new data just even in the last two weeks that demonstrates these vaccines are working against the variants that we have circulating here in the United States, and also data has emerged that has demonstrated that if you are vaccinated, you are less likely, not likely to asymptomatically shed the virus and give to it others."

"So, it is this coalescing of all the evidence now that tells us really, it is safe to take off your mask," the health official said.

Maddow acknowledged, "The previous CDC guidance on where and whether Americans can safely take off their masks was honestly really confusing and hard to explain."

Maddow isn't the only MSNBC host questioning the CDC. Joy Reid previously said that she won't listen to the experts and will continue to wear two face masks while jogging despite being fully vaccinated.

​UMass Amherst honor students suspended for not wearing masks off-campus while outside, parents ready to fight: 'It's been devastating'



Three UMass Amherst honor students have been kicked out of school because they were seen in a photo without masks when they were off-campus and outside. The freshmen students will reportedly lose their course credits and tuition over the maskless photo that was posted on social media. The students' parents are ready to fight the university's decision.

The three female students posed for a photo while at an off-campus party that was held outside in March. The photo posted to Instagram were reportedly sent to UMass Amherst officials, who then suspended the three students.

"There was a photo sent to the administration of these girls outside off-campus on a Saturday," Kristin, a mother of one of the suspended students, said. "This is why they lost a whole semester of their schooling."

RJ, the father of another suspended student, said his daughter "did everything right," adding, "She was valedictorian and class president of her high school."

The students were immediately moved out of on-campus housing and forced to return home to attend remote classes while they appealed their case, according to WCVB-TV. The parents said the three students lost their appeals.

The students were kicked out of their current distance-learning courses and were prohibited from taking their finals, which has major academic and financial ramifications for the families. The students were forced to forfeit the entire semester and $16,000 tuition that was already paid. The parents said the school would not refund the tuition.

"That negates this whole semester $16,000 of money and they have to reapply for next semester," a parent named Scott stated. "But they missed housing registration."

"These beautiful young ladies who are honors students have had a full academic year stripped away and their paths broken of their higher education for alleged COVID violations," one of the parents, who don't wish to give their last names in fear that it could hurt their daughters' chances of getting accepted to a new school, said.

"So for this to happen it's been devastating," Kristin said.

"One little thing happens and you're out? Like not even like a don't do it again, here's some probation," another parent named Teresa said, adding that the situation is "heartbreaking."

UMass Amherst did not provide a specific statement about the three students, but issued a statement.

"Students received a number of public health messages this semester that emphasized the importance of following public health protocols and the consequences for not complying, and those messages were also shared on UMass social media channels," the school said.

"Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the public health and safety of the UMass Amherst community has been the university's foremost priority," the university said. "Expectations regarding students' responsibility to follow public health protocols, and the consequences for failing to do so, were clearly communicated to students before and throughout the spring semester, and students were updated regularly as conditions changed."

"When positive COVID-19 cases surged within the UMass community in February 2021, the university, in consultation with the state Department of Public Health, promptly imposed severe restrictions on campus activities, including the suspension of in-person classes and a prohibition on student social gatherings," the school continued. "It was made clear to students that those who failed to comply would be subject to discipline, including suspension.

"The university said a February 7 campus-wide message directed all students, whether residing in campus residence halls or in off-campus housing in the surrounding area, were directed to stay home, except to get meals, undergo twice-weekly COVID testing, or to attend medical appointments," the statement read.

However, the parents argue that the suspension is entirely unfair, considering there is evidence that the UMass Amherst hockey team were also maskless, but suffered no repercussions from the school. There is a video of UMass Amherst students and members of the hockey team celebrating their national championship on campus in April; many are seen without face coverings.

"I just want the university administration to be equitable and fair," RJ declared.

The families plan to fight the university's decision. They have hired a lawyer and plan to file a lawsuit.

Wild story. Three UMass-Amherst students were sent packing- losing credits and tuition- for taking a picture outd… https://t.co/oU8e1iHASX

— David Wade (@davidwade) 1620424392.0