The medical research establishment has a strong incentive to find that masking children in school is beneficial somehow, in some way, and without question.

After all, a lot of effort has been expended to ensure that children have been masked in schools, and some still are. Yes, there are still schoolchildren masked. Kathy Hochul just visited some in Puerto Rico along with Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers. Not sure where schoolchildren are still masked within the official states (PR is an American territory and Puerto Ricans are citizens), but I would be surprised if there weren’t:

Kathy Hochul flew to Puerto Rico the November 9th, one day after the mid term election where she visited a school in San Juan, Puerto Rico with AFT president Randi Weingarten. She enjoyed a dance with students who were required to wear masks.

(h/t @katie_honan) pic.twitter.com/7vcDg15o1g

— Becker News (@NewsBecker) November 11, 2022

There is lots of evidence that this was a terrible mistake, as was kicking kids to the curb in order to keep the teachers’ unions firmly in the pocket of the Democrat Party. Even Leftists–some leftists, at least–have reconsidered the masking and shutdown policies for children.

But if you are a politician or public health expert who shoved these policies down our throats it is important to give no inch, admit no mistake, and justify the evil that was done.

Every single one of these people literally harmed children over the last three years. I mean…did lifetime damage.

And they'll never admit it. https://t.co/6wTov9CdwU

— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) November 8, 2022

The medical profession–especially the epidemiologists, of course–did enormous damage to this country during the pandemic. But by far the most victimized people in America were the children whose lives were upended, their education stalled, and their mental health damaged by mask fascists who became irrational tyrants who attacked anyone who spoke up for the children.

Children saw their mental health decline; some committed suicide, and I would be shocked if there were not some connection between the gender bender craze and school closures and masking policies. We warped a generation of kids.

There never was any research to back up the recommendation to mask, and the evidence that masks helped students in any way is very thin on the ground. And even if there were evidence that masks reduced the spread of COVID–and as I said the evidence is thin and contradictory–there is absolutely none at all that the minuscule benefits outweigh the costs.

Still, the epidemiologists will try to manufacture the evidence, and a recent study has made the attempt. Karol Markowicz has the story.

Unscientific mask studies are bad. A woke medical establishment, and a compliant media, is far worse. My Saturday column in @nypost https://t.co/ibtBUCieoF

— Karol Markowicz (@karol) November 12, 2022

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine purports to show that mask policies in schools work to contain COVID. But that’s not all: The authors conclude, “We believe that universal masking may be especially useful for mitigating effects of structural racism in schools, including potential deepening of educational inequities.”

Sure, masks help fix structural racism. Why not? And the next study will show masking fights climate change.

No, what this study shows is that much of the medical establishment continues to be intensely woke — and deeply dishonest because of it. Just as the “experts” told us gathering in crowds wasn’t OK in spring of 2020, but just weeks later protesting for Black Lives Matter somehow was.

This dishonesty is going to hurt us all for a long time.

As for this study specifically: It does not prove what the authors intended to. It’s just the latest in a push by agenda-driven scientists, and the media who love them, to get people back in masks.

Of course they threw in structural racism, because…well, because. Sounds impressive. It is a woke priority. And it backs up the whole “rioting for black lives was a public health imperative” narrative. If it can be tangentially be related to racial justice, any harm to society is justified. Because, well, racism.

Did I say racism? Masks cure racism as well as riots do. Public health experts say so! Racism, I say! Race race race mask.

The study centers on two Massachusetts school districts that didn’t remove their mask mandates as soon as the state allowed, in March 2022, but kept them until June. A few months later, they saw slightly lower COVID rates than the other districts.

It’s amazing that COVID could lay in wait like that, ready to punish those who behaved badly months earlier. What’s even more startling: COVID rates in all the schools were higher before anyone took off their mask — but that uncomfortable fact goes unmentioned in the write-up.

Plus, the study doesn’t look at actual mask use, just the mandates. Nor does it account for any differences in behavior, income level, lifestyles and so on. (Which also means it can’t show a thing about masks and “structural racism,” whatever that is anyway.)

Oh, and: It’s an “observational” study — the kind the left dismissed as irrelevant when we’d point out that New Mexico and next-door Utah had very similar COVID trajectories despite very different masking policies. Or that Europe largely didn’t mask kids in school at all but had similar or lower rates than we did. None of that counted.

The study, in other words, is bullsh$t. As if we didn’t know that already. Science went woke a while back, but the pandemic accelerated the trend amazingly. It is as if a memo went out to drop all that rigor and evidence testing and just go wild. Throw some pronouns in your syllabus and call it a day.

As an aside–guess which science has the fewest scientists mentioning pronouns on their syllabus? Physics. Because the laws of nature don’t encourage BS. Jump out a window even wearing a race dissolving mask and you will break something.

The study Mankowicz cites is filled with buzzwords like “structural racism” and “settler colonialism,” not to mention the not-at-all condescending “Latinx.” It hits all the woke touchstones and confirms every prejudice the Left cherishes. It is not at all clear how exactly masks prevent or mitigate systemic racism, except a vague claim that children getting COVID is bad and being black, brown, or zebra striped makes it even worse, mysteriously.

I actually did read the study and left unable to see the connection between masks and curing racism, but I am not woke. I still think there are two sexes, so my IQ must be 75.

Personally I would think that a decent education uninterrupted by woke busybodies would do a better job at helping disadvantaged kids than preventing them from getting the sniffles on a certain day–after all, each of these kids will wind up with COVID eventually, as will you and I. Because it is a freaking highly contagious airborne virus. That is how they work. Colds, flu, COVID are all unavoidable, except through isolation.

This is a good piece and it’s good to see The Atlantic run it. The fact is, and people are uncomfortable with this because COVID became a proxy war for other things, but:

Florida’s COVID approach was a fairly spectacular success. 1/2 https://t.co/eXXVpY1KFk

— Zac Bissonnette (@ZacBissonnette) November 12, 2022

That is why God gave us immune systems–to fight off the inevitable infections. Sorry. I wish we didn’t get sick, but we do. I honestly want nothing to do with COVID, but am resigned to getting it (and perhaps did get it–I had a terrible cold last winter, but never tested because…why would I, unless I got really ill?). The point is to not get really ill, not to know which particular virus made me ill.

There is a lot of room for disagreement about the appropriate cost/benefit analysis regarding disease prevention, but we passed the point where cost/benefit analyses matter a bit for these people. I am willing to listen to a rational evidence-based argument, but not to participate in a religious observance to make crazy people feel morally superior.

There is room for argument on anything, but you can’t have an argument with totalitarians who ignore and/or manufacture evidence. Unfortunately that is where we are.

Never forget. pic.twitter.com/CnCiXfs0i3

— Leftism (@LeftismForU) November 8, 2022