So-called parents groups are popping up in NH. They are agitating for new mask mandates in the public schools, citing a rise in cases, but this is meaningless fearmongering by uninformed public-health terrorists.
As with any flu, the same rules apply. You protect the genuinely vulnerable – the very sick and the very old. Everyone else, as you were.
The State’s data bear that out.
Percentages are of people who tested positive – data derived from the NH COVID summary 9-22-2021
Another thing they prove? In the 18 months they’ve been collecting data, only 30 individuals under twenty were in the hospital “with” COVID. That’s 0.14% of all so-called confined cases. Of those, no one died. Zero.
Related: Do Results Matter: After Oregon Issues Indoor and Outdoor Mask Mandate Cases are Up 74%
Only 7.5% of the entire state population under twenty has tested positive. That calculates demographically to 0.01% of the total population under 20 that tested positive in a hospital or went to the hospital after testing positive – with no mortality.
This is NOT a crisis by any measure.
And maybe that’s not enough for you, so how about this, care of Swiss Policy Research, including links to the studies.
- A May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza published by the US CDC found that face masks had no effect, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control. (Source)
- A Danish randomized controlled trial with 6000 participants, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in November 2020, found no statistically significant effect of high-quality medical face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection in a community setting. (Source)
- A large randomized controlled trial with close to 8000 participants, published in October 2020 in PLOS One, found that face masks “did not seem to be effective against laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections nor against clinical respiratory infection.” (Source)
- A February 2021 review by the European CDC found no high-quality evidence in favor of face masks and recommended their use only based on the ‘precautionary principle’. (Source)
- A July 2020 review by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of face masks against virus infection or transmission. (Source)
- A November 2020 Cochrane review found that face masks did not reduce influenza-like illness (ILI) cases, neither in the general population nor in health care workers. (Source)
- An August 2021 study published in the Int. Research Journal of Public Health found “no association between mask mandates or use and reduced COVID-19 spread in US states.” (Source)
- A July 2021 experimental study published by the American Institute of Physics found that face masks reduced indoor aerosols by at most 12%, not enough to prevent infections. (Source)
- An April 2020 review by two US professors in respiratory and infectious disease from the University of Illinois concluded that face masks have no effect in everyday life, neither as self-protection nor to protect third parties (so-called source control). (Source)
- An article in the New England Journal of Medicine from May 2020 came to the conclusion that face masks offer little to no protection in everyday life. (Source)
- A 2015 study in the British Medical Journal BMJ Open found that cloth masks were penetrated by 97% of particles and may increase infection risk by retaining moisture or repeated use. (Source)
- An August 2020 review by a German professor in virology, epidemiology and hygiene found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of face masks and that the improper daily use of masks by the public may in fact lead to an increase in infections. (Source)
You really only need one, but we gave you twelve, and even then, the actual data on kids is definitive. There is zero evidence for mask or distancing mandates (even if they worked). And after months of Delta variant fearmongering, the data tells us that healthy kids under 20 (under 60, actually) need not live in the shadow of that fear.
But if you can’t find your way into the light, wear a mask. No one is stopping you.
