Mask mandates harm children and America’s future
Sadly, after nearly two years of draconian lockdowns, remote learning and federal mandates, many communities have not been allowed to return to normal. Even worse, parents are becoming increasingly worried about how senseless government decrees at every level are harming their children’s development.
Students across our commonwealth are suffering from the Biden administration’s disastrous COVID policies.
Just last week I spoke with several parents in Upper St. Clair who expressed their concerns about how the COVID mandates are impacting their children. I also met with hundreds of students at Grove City College who have fortunately been able to resume class in-person thanks to leadership who went above and beyond to prevent mandates from standing in the way of providing their students with a quality education and the resources to allow them to thrive.
Among the crowds of people I spoke with, I heard serious concerns ranging from student progress to staffing shortages caused by vaccine mandates. Yet our public officials remain focused on closing our schools, boosting our kids and smothering them with masks to “slow the spread.” These policies ignore the value of natural immunity and the fact that our children are a generally low-risk population. Our first response to inevitable new variants cannot be more boosters and another layer of masks — it must be a return to the principles and spirit that make Pennsylvania and America great.
Just last week, researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that young children were at a lower risk of COVID infection in school than in other settings. Scientists in Georgia have also found that there is no real linkage between masks and fewer cases in schools, while others have even called out Mr. Biden’s Centers for Disease Control for having failed to conduct randomized trials on student masks. And a recent study by Brown University found reduced verbal, motor and cognitive abilities of children born during the pandemic when compared to children born prior.
In the face of science and reason, too many government bureaucrats simply won’t stop doubling down on ineffective mandates. Their efforts have harmed our children, and we know that remote learning due to school closures has been detrimental for many children from lower-income households. Research has shown that students in struggling families became disengaged when given no option for in-person learning, especially where there was unreliable access to technologies like high-speed broadband.
We must continue to stand up to the steady stream of junk science we are being fed, and we must call it like we see it — especially when it comes to exposing Washington’s dishonest efforts to make Pennsylvanians bend to their will. It’s time to bring to an end to the false narrative of onesize-fits-all mandates that demand we lock down and mask up.
As a doctor, a father and a grandfather, I firmly believe that parents have the ultimate authority over the health and education of their children. We must do a far better job of providing opportunities for our families, school communities and doctors to do what is best for children on a case-by-case basis. That is why I have consistently advocated for not just individualized treatments and therapies but for a return to the medical mindset of “treating the patient” — not treating our children as guinea pigs and using them as shields.
And a huge part of empowering our families is ensuring that our children receive the best education possible in the safest environment possible. It’s unfortunate that teacher union leadership and entrenched members of our country’s medical establishment refuse to acknowledge the damage that is being done through harsh mandates that do not make us safer.
Together, we must keep our schools open, ensure our students and teachers are safe, and build an even stronger generation of Americans.