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New York Times Article Calls for Universal Masking in Schools, but It Doesn’t Stack Up

by Noah Carl
16 August 2021 8:34 AM

The authors of a recent New York Times op-ed describe universal masking as “one of the effective and efficient strategies for preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission in schools”. And given the putative evidence supporting this measure, they ask rhetorically, “Why not require universal masking?”

The authors – a paediatrician and an epidemiologist – cite evidence from a recent study carried out in North Carolina. They collected data on COVID-19 infections among 864,515 students in the state’s school system from March 1st through June 25th, 2021. During this period, there was a mask mandate in place for all K-12 schools.

In total, 6,484 primary infections were recorded, and only 308 secondary infections. (Secondary infections refer to those among the contacts of students who were initially identified as infected.) “We believe this low rate of transmission occurred,” the authors write, because of universal masking.

By contrast, they note that “one school in Israel without a mask mandate… reported an outbreak of COVID-19 involving 153 students”. And “outbreaks at youth camps in Texas, Illinois and Florida show how quickly COVID-19 can spread among adolescents… who are largely unmasked”.

However, there are a number of problems with this argument. As you may have already noticed, there was no control group. The authors observed a low secondary attack rate, and then attributed this to the state’s mask mandate.

Yet infections were falling over the relevant time period in North Carolina as a whole. Only 390 cases were recorded on June 25th, compared to over 2,000 on March 2nd. And several previous studies have found “much lower” secondary attack rates among children, so it may not be that surprising the authors observed a low value.  

As David Zweig notes, schools in some parts of Europe and the U.S. did not have mask mandates, and there were no corresponding explosions of cases. What’s more, the Israeli study isn’t as clear-cut as the authors suggest. All schools in the country were exempt from masks for three days, so a single outbreak isn’t strong evidence for mask efficacy.

But put all that to one side. Suppose the authors are correct that universal masking reduces transmission in schools. Is it therefore worth doing? I would argue no.

First, there are tangible costs to mask-wearing. They’re uncomfortable. They get dirty. And they don’t allow you to see other people’s faces, which hampers learning (particularly for the youngest children) as well as social interaction more generally.

Second, it’s not even clear that we want to prevent children from becoming infected. For starters, they face an extremely low risk of death from COVID-19. According to a recent English study, the survival rate for under-18s is 99.995%. And if COVID-19 becomes endemic, which seems very likely, they’ll have to get it at some point. So why not now?

In fact, we might want to encourage children to become infected, the better to build up population immunity and protect the most vulnerable. (I’m of course exempting children who have a serious underlying health condition.)

Vaccination is another option, but I believe we should focus vaccines on those who actually need them, such as elderly people in other countries. And in any case, many people don’t want their children to be vaccinated.

The authors of the New York Times piece make two claims: universal masking cuts transmission in schools; and therefore we should require it. I’m sceptical of the first claim, but even if it’s true, the second doesn’t follow. Wearing masks is costly, and it’s not even clear we want to prevent infections among healthy children.

Kids have already paid a heavy price during the pandemic, thanks to months of ill-advised school closures. Rather than forcing them to wear masks, which could further diminish their learning, we should end the mandates and let them get back to normal.

Stop Press: For a rigorous and comprehensive review of the evidence on mask efficacy, see this piece in City Journal by Jeffrey H. Anderson, a former Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Tags: MasksNew York TimesSchools

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47 Comments
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Sandra Barwick
Sandra Barwick
3 years ago

Did the authors declare any links to the Puppet Masters of the Narrative? Is or has been their research work funded by Gates or Wellcome or Pfizer? Are these big funders of the institutions to which they are closely connected?

24
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Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago
Reply to  Sandra Barwick

A very good question. They claim to be funded by the National Institutes of Health, which claims to be government (i.e. taxpayer) funded, but it would interesting to scratch beneath that veneer and find out if the NIH launders private donations as well.

15
0
Hugh
Hugh
3 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

Government funded? Isn’t there a long standing and quite sophisticated campaign by Big Pharma to influence democratic policies? In any case, with such a flagrant distortion of the truth (again), one would be right to be suspicious.

3
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Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago

Morning, rational extremists.

But what if hampering learning and social interaction are goals?

Sub-goals, I mean, with the main chance being unquestioning obedience to the State, inculcated by acts of ritual self humiliation.

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Rowan
Rowan
3 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

But what if hampering learning and social interaction are goals?

These might well be the main goals and of course they all all the more reason not to do it.

Last edited 3 years ago by Rowan
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JayBee
JayBee
3 years ago

Sweden.
Basically that one word is already the only response necessary.
No masks, no problem.
Least of all in schools.

The recent CityJournal review of all RCTs shows that masks don’t work.
Logic, maths and physics show that masks cannot work.
Prof. Kappstein’s work and all observations demonstrate that community masks cannot work in practice even if they could work in theory, which, see above, they don’t.
(You need to get fitted, you need to wash your hands 3x per exchange, you need to use sterilized masks only, you need to exchange them after having spoken 3 sentences or touched your face, you must never put on one which hung under your chin, on your rear view mirror or was put loosely in your bag. ETC.)

In practice, masks are medically just a dangerous farce.

Politicially though, they are essential.
They are the modern day Gessler hat and Hitler salute.
That’s their real and sole function and purpose: to demonstrate consent, allegiance and obedience to the cult.
And these authors know that very well.

56
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Marmalade
Marmalade
3 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

Add to that the fact that for centuries mankind did not wear masks and the population increased enormously in that time.

16
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Hugh
Hugh
3 years ago
Reply to  Marmalade

Do you suppose this may be about something other than increasing the population?

1
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Bella Donna
Bella Donna
3 years ago

I cannot believe we are still talking about masks – they don’t work – end of.

39
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Dave Angel Eco Warrier
Dave Angel Eco Warrier
3 years ago
Reply to  Bella Donna

Because the majority still seem to think they do.

8
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Rowan
Rowan
3 years ago
Reply to  Dave Angel Eco Warrier

Because the BBC told them so.

11
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Julian
Julian
3 years ago

“It doesn’t stack up” Only if you think the NYT is motivated by public health concerns. Why would you assume that? It’s a political entity. Masks in schools stack up if you want to further political goals supported by the NYT. Everything about covid has been political from the start.

23
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JayBee
JayBee
3 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Yep. NYT = Dems/Orange Man Bad.
Everything Covid related is solely partisan now in the US.
And Dems = Masks.

7
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Julian
Julian
3 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

It’s partisan in the UK too I think – just that there’s only one side represented. At least they have a mainstream opposition in the US.

7
0
Occams Pangolin Pie
Occams Pangolin Pie
3 years ago

It’s endemic. It’s a common cold even in adults. It’s gone.
Nothing medical about this for over a year (if at all).
NYT = evil.

15
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thinkcriticall
thinkcriticall
3 years ago

Watch and share while it’s still up!
Dr Tess Lawrie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2EEDJuQNrI

5
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RickH
RickH
3 years ago
Reply to  thinkcriticall

Yes – a very good interview on the key issues.

3
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RickH
RickH
3 years ago

Not even sure that this non-study was worth giving airtime. It’s pure bollocks – and contrary to a mass of studies. Pure propaganda.

“The authors of the New York Times piece make two claims: universal masking cuts transmission in schools; and therefore we should require it. I’m sceptical of the first claim…”

Only ‘sceptical’, Noah?

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MTF
MTF
3 years ago

Noah raises some good points about the science as presented in the NYT article. But it is not so clear we actually want children to get Covid. Although they are extremely unlikely to get seriously ill, they can pass it on to their families and more significantly their teachers – losing a teacher for two weeks is a lot more disruptive to learning than wearing a mask! 

It is not at all certain that they will gain any useful immunity in the future by contracting Covid now. We don’t know how long natural immunity from Covid lasts, but as a virus it seems to be more like flu than say measles or chickenpox, and flu varies so much that getting flu one year is little help in protecting yourself the next year. We would not recommend young children get flu to gain immunity in the future.  

2
-18
RickH
RickH
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

“.. losing a teacher for two weeks is a lot more disruptive to learning than wearing a mask! ”

Nonsense – even if the comparison is valid. Destroying key components of communication is not very disruptive? And that apart from the physical effects of hypoxia and hypercapnia. Get back to Planet Zog (where evidently they don’t have faces or lungs).

Your post is a sequence of non-sequiturs – starting from the fact that this is no exceptional crisis requiring damaging interventions – let alone pointless black magic.

The realm that you are in with these sort of interventions treats this very moderate seasonal infection as if it was terminal cancer, where desperate measures are the last hope.

Get a grip.

Last edited 3 years ago by RickH
15
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TheTartanEagle
TheTartanEagle
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

ROFL. Many years ago I did a PGCE. First few weeks of teaching practice the entire course was full of snot, as the student teachers were re-exposed to all those varieties of bug that go round, across dozens of schools. Brought them into the halls of residence too, so everyone got a boost to their immune system. After that, you don’t seem to catch much. Teachers’ immune systems deal with it all, they are practically bullet proof. There’s a bit of a snuffle at the beginning of the autumn term, then it goes away. The point is, no-one thought anything of it. Hide under a rock if you want, but when you come out you’ll be slain by something the rest of the population shrugs off.

Losing a teacher for two weeks – that’s an economic argument, hence can’t be used to justify abusive practices.

19
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RickH
RickH
3 years ago
Reply to  TheTartanEagle

Also the scientific ‘votes’ (the facts) are in. There is, in this case, little evidence that children transmit Covid to adults – which distinguish it from the snot-bugs that neophyte teachers are prone to.

11
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BungleIsABogan
BungleIsABogan
3 years ago
Reply to  TheTartanEagle

..so everyone got a boost to their immune system….

…Teachers’ immune systems deal with it all, they are practically bullet proof.

But you aren’t allowed to have an “immune system” anymore…didn’t you see the memo?

Last edited 3 years ago by ThisIsMyName
1
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chris c
chris c
3 years ago
Reply to  TheTartanEagle

My mother, a teacher, said that long ago, and I’ve heard the same from shop workers and other customer-facing people, they initially catch a lot of things and then become immune.

0
0
Julian
Julian
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

“the science” Lol. None of the covid measures are to do with science, it’s just a cover. It’s political. And my political view is that I am not going to restrict my breathing for someone else’s supposed benefit.

As for kids getting covid, they either will or won’t, depending on mother nature/fate/whatever. There’s nothing much we can do about it, as the last 18 months have shown.

14
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amanuensis
amanuensis
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

There’s rather a lot of evidence suggesting that the main covid risk for teachers is teacher-to-teacher transmission — the children don’t seem to be involved in this, particularly.
But then who needs evidence when the decision has already been made and where the politicians would lose power if the masses saw that their interventions were only making things worse.

16
0
RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

I have an extremely simple solution to solve the problem of teachers who claim to believe that teaching is just too dangerous to them: Find a different job. You wrongly assumed that this was about getting state money for live with nothing in return. According to a Facebook ad I just saw, the NHS is hiring diversity counsellors, ie, people who do nothing in exchange for money. This might be more to your liking.

—-

Regarding the “it’s not at all certain”: This would be more correctly worded as Because we the undersigned refuse to take note of factual information about Sars-CoV2 and COVID-19, we still maintain that it must be fundamentally different from anything else which ever happened on this world so far. And the answer to that is Get a life. Perhaps on the far side of the moon or some remote island in the north Atlantic. That’s perfectly possible. Mankind will probably not notice if you remove yourself from it, minus the sudden drop in levels of white noise.

11
0
MTF
MTF
3 years ago
Reply to  RW

I absolutely cannot work out what you think I was assuming. I wrote nothing about teachers believing the job was dangerous -nor do I think it is. I was just pointing out that if a teacher gets Covid then the whole class is disrupted.

I said something was not certain and explained why I thought that. Maybe I am wrong. If so, how about explaining why I was wrong rather than this weird tirade about getting a life?

0
0
Julian
Julian
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

Teachers get ill for all sorts of reasons. That’s life. There are supply teachers. Education has been and continues to be immensely disrupted in the UK, much less in Sweden. Evidence suggests the Swedish approach gives the more satisfactory outcome.

4
0
MTF
MTF
3 years ago
Reply to  Julian

I am not arguing for or against a Swedish approach. All I am saying is that it is not necessarily a good thing if children get Covid. One of the reasons being their teacher may get ill – and Covid can be very nasty. Yes schools can cope to some extent if teachers are ill but there is a limit. It is all a question of how much.

0
-4
RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

After over a year of this, I’m simply tired of treating obvious pretexts as if they were meant to be serious statements.

At each turn of this sorry spectacle, the teacher’s unions have demanded that schools must be closed for the safety of their members. They were also the ones who demanded that all pupils must be vaccinated until the end of the summer holidays, for the safety of their members, and this article is about forcing pupils to wear masks, again for the safety of teachers/ members of teacher’s unions. The obvious conclusion is that teacher’s unions must have a lot of members who are convinced that their jobs are too dangerous for them. Hence, they should switch jobs. Problem solved.

The second part of your text was another COVID standard, namely, harping on about all kinds of things the person talking claims to be ignorant of. Functionally, this is intended to sow doubts/ fear in the audience, practically, it’s white noise: No useful information can be gained from stating that something is unknown and no course of action can be justified by this. That’s a pretty elementary logic error called appeal to ignorance.

If we don’t yet know something which will be of importance to us, we’ll have to find out. There’s no use speculating about it instead.

5
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MTF
MTF
3 years ago
Reply to  RW

The second part of your text was another COVID standard, namely, harping on about all kinds of things the person talking claims to be ignorant of. Functionally, this is intended to sow doubts/ fear in the audience, practically, it’s white noise: No useful information can be gained from stating that something is unknown and no course of action can be justified by this. That’s a pretty elementary logic error called appeal to ignorance.

The appeal to ignorance is to argue that something must be true because there is no evidence against it. I clearly have not done this because I haven’t claimed anything must be true. What I have done is argue something may not be true (that children will gain useful immunity through infection) and given a reason for it (immunity may not last very long). It is a very straightforward, logically sound argument. Is it a fallacy to argue that something is uncertain? What if it is uncertain – are you not allowed to prove it?

0
0
vivaldi
vivaldi
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

You said coronavirus is similar to flu but it is different in that flu strains do ‘shift’ from year to year whereas a coronavirus will just ‘drift” (@0.3%), therefore not requiring booster shots.
You seem to be unaware that people who caught SARS CoV -1 still have immunity 18 years later.
The government has just said through (the mouth of Javid) for people to ” get your jabs as soon as you can so we can continue to safely live with this virus…” If teachers have the ‘vaccine’ are they not “safe” as Javid claims?
Your posts are not well informed nor well argued….by reading ATL and BTL you should become better informed.

1
0
me too
me too
3 years ago
Reply to  RW

RW, you are a well breed person. I’m not. I just wrote what I think of this beast.

0
0
amanuensis
amanuensis
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

And regarding influenza:

There’s substantial evidence showing that children do catch influenza and as a result develop broadly protecting cross-immunity to multiple influenza strains. They also tend to have only mild symptoms.

The relative susceptibility to influenza in older adults is known to be due to the gradual loss of the innate immune system with age (that protects against upper respiratory tract viral infections), but also due to them not being exposed to H3N2 during childhood (as it didn’t circulate prior to the late 1950’s); in older adults H3N2 is much more lethal than H1N1 strains (which they would likely have been exposed to as children).

Vaccination of children against influenza appears to offer a much more selective immune response, which, because of immunogenic imprinting (original antigenic sin) will likely result in increased risks of serious symptomatic disease once the influenza has mutated sufficiently (ie, once they reach adulthood).

So, it would seem at present that children might well be better off by becoming infected with influenza before they reach adulthood.

Oh, and this immunogenic imprinting is why it is very dangerous to vaccinate people using only a highly mutable protein of a given virus — each successive infection with a similar virus will stimulate the production of antibodies biased towards the original proteins ‘learnt’ by the immune system — as the spike protein is mutating rapidly this suggests that the vaccinated will have a poor immune response to future covid infection. OTOH, those with natural infection will have a broad immune response to the entirety of the virus, much of which does not mutate rapidly, and thus even with immunogeneic imprinting their immune response to future infection should be somewhat protective. In this sense the vaccination of children against covid would appear to be rather risky wrt medium- and longer-term risks.

10
0
MTF
MTF
3 years ago
Reply to  amanuensis

So would you honestly recommend that parents expose their young children to influenza? (the mortality rate for 0-4 year olds is about 1.3 in 100,000 – so chances are it will just be unpleasant).

0
0
RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

I would honestly recommend that people who are concerned about the large number of relatively harmless pathogens on this planet find another to live on they’re better adapted to — I already suggested the far side of the moon or remote, otherwise uninhabited islands.

5
0
Jess
Jess
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

“…losing a teacher for two weeks is a lot more disruptive to learning than wearing a mask!”

Your exclamation suggests how trivial you find masking a person’s face and expression, the muffled voice and other effects.

Disruption is part of life. I well remember teachers’ occasional illnesses. Some carried on regardless, others were replaced by supply teachers who would often present a new dimension to the subject; on one occasion a teacher demonstrated his lost voice. We learnt a bit about (and maybe even how to spell) Laryngitis.

Last edited 3 years ago by Jess
7
0
me too
me too
3 years ago
Reply to  MTF

Besides huge stupidity, there is clear evidence of being a beast: not being human,

1
0
amanuensis
amanuensis
3 years ago

There is now rather a lot of evidence suggesting that childhood covid cases:

  • Usually originate in the home, not school
  • Pupil to pupil transmission is relatively rare
  • Teacher to pupil transmission is more common but still rare
  • Teacher to teacher transmission is more common again.
  • The incidence of covid in teachers isn’t significantly different from that of other professions.

But science be dammed — the authorities have decided that masks are great, vaccines even better and that children are dirty spreaders of covid. There is no arguing with these people, no amount of evidence that will sway them. We’re being held ransom by a pile of covid zealots who want their agenda to be followed no matter the consequences.

15
0
Julian
Julian
3 years ago
Reply to  amanuensis

Control zealots. Covid is a useful cover.

6
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago

Another pointless study which was clearly initiated with a predetermined outcome.

The evidence to support the result is based on case numbers which in themselves mean nothing based as they are on PCR testing which is wholly inappropriate.

All in all a complete waste of everyone’s time. Or to sum up:

Complete and utter Bollox.

ps. This Scam has nothing to do with public health, unless we acknowledge the ‘health’ angle is about undermining it.

11
0
Garfy1967
Garfy1967
3 years ago

The f***ing irony of the MSM complaining that the Taliban are demanding women cover their faces in Afghanistan is not lost on me.

6
0
DanClarke
DanClarke
3 years ago
Reply to  Garfy1967

Classic

0
0
me too
me too
3 years ago

A very nice, plain and intelligent text by Jeffrey H. Anderson.

1
0
BungleIsABogan
BungleIsABogan
3 years ago

Any suggestion that kids should wear masks is simply absolute criminal abuse – end of.

2
0
DanClarke
DanClarke
3 years ago

Still think the timing of all of this was weird, in between Event 201 and before Agenda 21

0
0

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