Survey finds 41% of parents say wearing masks at school harms kids — only 11% say it helps
A new Politico-Harvard survey found that an overwhelming majority of parents feel as though masks either hurt their children at school or have no effect on them at all.
A Politico-Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll released Friday revealed that 41% of parents said wearing masks in school "hurts" their children's "general schooling experience." Another 47% of parents said masks in school "doesn't make a difference." Only 11% said that masking kids in school "helps" a child's general schooling experience.
There was a major divide on the topic of masking children in school along party lines: 63% of Republicans said masks hurt children in their schooling experiences compared to 19% of Democrats who said the same. Meanwhile, 45% of independents said masking up kids hurts, while only 6% said it helps.
There were 34% who said that masks harm their children's education, while 55% said it doesn't have an impact.
When it comes to social interactions, 46% of parents say masks negatively affect children. There were 45% who said it doesn't make a difference, according to the poll of 478 U.S. adults with children in their household who attend school in person from kindergarten to 12th grade. Some 73% of Republican parents said masks hinder social learning and interactions versus 50% of independents and 20% of Democrats.
The survey, which was taken between March 1-7, found that 39% of parents believe wearing masks at school harms the mental and emotional health of their children.
In schools that already have a mask mandate, a whopping 68% of parents said it is "necessary today for a child to wear a mask at school in order to be safe from COVID-19 and variants such as Omicron." Meanwhile, in schools without mask mandates, it is the exact opposite – 67% say masks are not necessary. Overall, 51% of parents say kids should wear masks in schools versus 47% who said it isn't necessary.
Similar numbers were found along party lines – 73% of Democrats saying masks are necessary for children to protect against COVID-19, while 73% of Republican parents said it is absolutely not necessary for children to be masked in school.
"Even if I’m in a Democratic state or district, I'd pay attention because there are a substantial number of independent parents who think the policy is hurting their children," Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis, emeritus, at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told Politico. "If you say something hurts my children, you’re going to feel strongly about it ... Anything that has an impact on your family has a disproportionate impact on how you think of things."
"The parents who are against it are not going back. They've concluded it’s not good for children's education and it's two years of this," Blendon added. "When you have a substantial number of parents who think their children are being threatened, it's going to matter politically."
Michigan admits schools with mask mandates have 'similar' COVID-19 case rates to those not requiring face coverings
The state of Michigan released data last week that show schools with mask mandates have "similar" COVID-19 case rates to those not requiring face coverings.
The state published the "Michigan COVID Response Data and Modeling Update" on Dec. 14. The analysis examined COVID-19 data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the Michigan Disease Surveillance System as recently as Dec. 3, of school students ages 5-18.
The report stated, "Case rates in 5–18-year-olds have become more similar across mask rule types."
The latest reporting actually shows that schools with "few/no mask rules" had fewer 7-day average cases per 100,000 than schools where masks are required or schools with "partial mask rules."
The report added, "Differences due to masking potentially being washed out by transmission in other settings."
"But the report did not expand further on why kids in communities with mask mandates are seeing the same transmission rates as those without mask policies," Fox News reported.
Despite the transmission results, health officials noted, "It remains important to mask up in indoor settings (schools and otherwise) to prevent transmission."
A peer-reviewed study released in August discovered similar findings that face masks had no significant impact on reducing the spread of COVID-19.
Researchers from the University of Louisville compared COVID-19 case growth in states with mask mandates to states without mandatory mask mandates. The researchers concluded, "Mask mandates and use likely did not affect COVID-19 case growth."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends face masks be worn in school, "Due to the circulating and highly contagious Delta variant, CDC recommends universal indoor masking by all students (age 2 and older), staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status."
In October, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky promoted a study on students wearing masks in Arizona schools.
"After adjusting for potential described confounders, the odds of a school-associated COVID-19 outbreak in schools without a mask requirement were 3.5 times higher than those in schools with an early mask requirement," the study said.
However, the study has since been scrutinized.
The Atlantic published an article last week titled: "The CDC’s Flawed Case for Wearing Masks in School." The author of the article asserted, "The agency’s director has said, repeatedly, that schools without mask mandates have triple the risk of COVID outbreaks. That claim is based on very shaky science."
The Atlantic article stated:
But the Arizona study at the center of the CDC's back-to-school blitz turns out to have been profoundly misleading. "You can't learn anything about the effects of school mask mandates from this study," Jonathan Ketcham, a public-health economist at Arizona State University, told me. His view echoed the assessment of eight other experts who reviewed the research, and with whom I spoke for this article. Masks may well help prevent the spread of COVID, some of these experts told me, and there may well be contexts in which they should be required in schools. But the data being touted by the CDC—which showed a dramatic more-than-tripling of risk for unmasked students—ought to be excluded from this debate. The Arizona study's lead authors stand by their work, and so does the CDC. But the critics were forthright in their harsh assessments. Noah Haber, an interdisciplinary scientist and a co-author of a systematic review of COVID-19 mitigation policies, called the research "so unreliable that it probably should not have been entered into the public discourse."
The study also was significantly flawed since not all of the schools opened at the same time, which meant some schools had as many as three extra weeks to develop a COVID-19 outbreak.
Author David Zweig concluded, "With Biden in the White House, the CDC has promised to 'follow the science' in its COVID policies. Yet the circumstances around the Arizona study seem to show the opposite."
Pennsylvania Supreme Court strikes down K-12 mask mandate
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down a statewide mask mandate for Pennsylvania schoolchildren on Friday, in a defeat for Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's administration.
The justices announced their decision to uphold a lower court order vacating the mandate, but have not yet issued a written opinion explaining the reasoning of the court.
The Commonwealth Court previously ruled that Wolf's K-12 mask order was illegitimate because it was imposed by the state's acting health secretary without legal authorization. The court found that acting Health Secretary Alison Beam lacked the authority to require masks, did not follow statutory requirements for issuing regulations, and acted without an existing disaster emergency in place, which the governor must officially declare for an emergency order to be issued.
Specifically, the lower court found that Pennsylvania's disease control law does not give Beam "the blanket authority to create new rules and regulations out of whole cloth, provided they are related in some way to the control of disease or can otherwise be characterized as disease control measures."
Pennsylvania schools will now each be free to make their own masking policies, the Associated Press reported.
“The decision will be left to the 500 school districts in Pennsylvania, with respect to what to do with the implications of this order,” Thomas W. King III, an attorney representing Republican lawmakers, school districts, schools, and parents who challenged the masking requirements, said.
King said school boards will need to consult with their own lawyers over masking policies.
“This is a great day in Pennsylvania for the rule of law,” King said. “The Supreme Court has proved that no one is above the law, and that includes the secretary of health or the governor.”
Wolf's office did not immediately offer a comment to the AP.
The court's decision follows oral arguments in the case which were held two days ago.
The lawsuit against the Wolf administration was filed by Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R); state Rep. Jesse Topper (R); two religious schools; three public school districts; and several parents of schoolchildren
The litigants argued that Beam's actions locked the public out of debate, prohibited the General Assembly from reviewing the policy's legality, and violated state law.
After the lower court ruled against the K-12 mask mandate, Wolf said he would turn authority over mask policies to local school districts in January.
The Wolf administration's mask mandate required that students, staff, and visitors at K-12 schools and child care facilities wear masks while indoors, regardless of whether or not they've been vaccinated.
Texas judge grants temporary restraining order against Gov. Greg Abbott's school masking ban
A Texas judge on Tuesday granted a temporary restraining order against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's ban on mask mandates in schools.
According to a report from KSAT-TV, Bexar County Civil District Court Judge Toni Arteaga approved the order following a Tuesday hearing to allow San Antonio to require masks in schools.
The report added that San Antonio's seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases is over 1,200.
What are the details?
The order will allow both county and city schools to require masks in all public schools in San Antonio and Bexar County until a further decision regarding Abbott's executive order is made.
With the order, the city and county will "immediately issue an order requiring masks in public schools and requiring quarantine if an unvaccinated student is determined to be in close contact with a COVID-19 positive individual," the station reported.
In court, Arteaga said, "I don't do this lightly."
"And those under 12 of course, as you know, don't have access to the vaccine, and they're already in school," she added. "So I do find that this is emergent, I do find that it is necessary."
Abbott handed down the executive order in July, preventing schools from mandating mask-wearing.
At the time, he said that his executive order "emphasizes that the path forward relies on personal responsibility rather than government mandates."
What else?
In response to the news, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said, "We can get back to managing what is a very dangerous surge of this Delta variant in schools and otherwise."
Renae Eze, a spokesperson for the Abbott administration, said that the governor's "resolve to protect the rights and freedoms of all Texans has not wavered."
"There have been dozens of legal challenges to the Governor's executive orders — all of which have been upheld in the end," Eze continued. "We expect a similar outcome when the San Antonio trial court's decision is reviewed by the appellate courts."
The temporary restraining order will remain in effect at least until a Monday court hearing.
www.theblaze.com
freebeacon.com