We are wrapping up an intense week (and second year) of advocating for the removal of newly instituted child & young adult mask mandates and we are ready for the winter holiday!

Earlier in the week, we launched an Align Act direct email campaign to demand the removal of the mask mandate recently reimposed by SUNY Purchase. To date, hundreds of emails have been sent to the university president and other policymakers to ask for the removal of the mandate. Please add your name here (each name triggers an immediate and direct email to all recipients).

We also rang the alarm bells about the new mandate imposed by the New Jersey’s Passaic Public Schools on their 13,494 students - in a total of 17 schools. The district’s minority enrollment is 100%. Also, 75.8% of students are economically disadvantaged. We suggested getting in touch with School Superintendent Sandra Montañez-Diodonet smdiodonet@passaicschools.org 973-470-5500 and Passaic School Board members.

And more mandates seem to be coming, particularly in low-income areas including Camden and Philadelphia. Here are their superintendents if you want to reach out and we will also announce new actions you can take next week.

Camden https://camdencityschools.org/superintendents-office/

Philadelphia https://www.philasd.org/schoolboard/contact/

This is the time to hear about masking, from a child’s perspective. Here’s what six year old Sybil has to say. If this doesn’t make it clear that masking children is harmful, we don’t know what will.

And finally, we asked epidemiologist Dr. Tracy Høeg, a celebrated researcher on Covid mitigations and policy, and Urgency of Normal member, about her thoughts on masks. Dr. Høeg and Canadian economist Ambarish Chandra have just published a comprehensive study expanding upon an observational study published by the CDC looking at school mask mandates and pediatric COVID-19 cases. Drs. Høeg and Chandra found that there was no association between school mask mandates and cases when studied over a longer time frame and with a greater sample size.

Pediatric COVID-19 case rates and school mask requirements: 1832 counties https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0163445322005503

We asked Tracy for a quote about the efficacy of masking for our press release announcing an email campaign urging an end to SUNY Purchase’s reinstated college mask mandate. Tracy’s response was detailed and full of important info, which we wanted to share - in full with you.

Here are Tracy’s words, unedited:

“I think it's important for the public to understand that the highest quality studies we have, called randomized studies, have failed to find any significant benefit of cloth or surgical masks in this age group [adults 18-50] in terms of decreasing COVID-19 transmission (even the small amount of benefit of surgical masking identified among >50 years olds has been questioned and is highly uncertain).

We also have randomized studies of masking including the use of N95s in health care workers for the prevention of influenza and these have also failed to identify a significant benefit in terms of disease transmission.

Very high risk individuals may have a false sense of security or protection from infection from their own mask or others masking around them. Masking also comes with significant downsides including learning and communication difficulties for students and staff who are hard or hearing or deaf and for English language learners (for this reason, some consider mask mandates as "ableist" since they are discriminatory against those who find masked environments more difficult to learn and communicate in).

Students who understand the scientific data well are also likely to become distrustful of authorities who are insisting they and their classmates mask when the highest quality scientific data and rational public health policy, which weighs known benefits with known and potential harms, do not support school masking for the prevention of COVID-19 or influenza.”

We are so grateful to Tracy, Ambarish and all of the other data scientists and medical professionals who have never failed to present us with scrupulously researched, unpoliticized information.

Because of you we have been able to help our own kids return to normal and continue to advocate for so many others who do not yet enjoy the privilege of doing so.

Happy Friday and Happy Holidays! Thank you for your support - we couldn’t do this work without you!

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A Season of Masks