Press "Enter" to skip to content

ResCon1

Virginia Parents Fight Ill-Founded School Mask Mandates

Virginia Parents Fight Ill-Founded School Mask Mandates

By John R Guardiano on January 25, 2022

But this time, their governor, newly inaugurated Republican Glenn Youngkin, has their back and is fighting for them.

Brave parents, teachers and schoolchildren in Northern Virginia are waging a valiant struggle for students to attend school unmasked, even as the public schools bureaucracy acts to punish them for their heresy.

This latest skirmish arose because Virginia’s new Republican Governor, Glenn Youngkin, signed an executive order that allows individual parents to decide whether their children will attend school masked or unmasked.

In so doing, Youngkin is keeping faith with the voters who elected him, as parental rights was a major campaign issue in his 2021 race for governor.

Virginia parents, like parents nationwide, had reached their wits end because of schools that would not open, teachers who would not teach, and a curriculum that would not steer clear of far-left political and cultural indoctrination.

Yet, some prominent school districts in Northern Virginia remain obstinate and unmoved. They literally are turning away unmasked students, or isolating them and segregating them from the classroom.

The issue will soon be taken up by the Virginia State Supreme Court. Gov. Youngkin says he is confident that his executive order will be vindicated by the Virginia jurists. Virginia code § 1-240.1, he notes, says “a parent has fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent’s child.”

The problem is that the Virginia state legislature passed a law in 2021 requiring school boards to adhere

to the maximum extent practicable, to any currently applicable mitigation strategies for early childhood care and education programs and elementary and secondary schools to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 that have been provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC recommends “universal indoor masking by all students (ages 2 years and older), staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.”

Of course, the science behind this CDC recommendation is utterly lacking.

Students are not efficient transmitters of the coronavirus and teachers are not at serious risk of contracting COVID from students. “A North Carolina study conducted before vaccines were available,” write Drs. Marty Makary and H. Cody Meissner

found not a single case of student-to-teacher transmission when 90,000 students were in school. The faster-spreading Delta [and Omicron variants have] emerged since—but many teachers, parents and children 12 and over have also been vaccinated.

And masks—especially the cloth masks that most students have been wearing and are still wearing—do little to nothing to stop or slow the spread of COVID.

In fact, when, in 2020, the CDC actually studied the efficacy of masking schoolchildren, it found that, in Georgia, “the lower incidence in schools that required mask use among students was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional.”

To date, some 862,000 Americans have died with or from COVID. Nearly 75 percent of these deaths have been people 65 years of age or older.

Only 4.2 percent of these deaths have been people 45 years of age or younger. And only a minuscule fraction of one percent, less than 1,000 deaths, have been people 17 years of age or younger.

The idea that schoolchildren need to be masked to protect them and others from COVID simply is not borne out by either the science or the data.

Thus the Northern Virginia school districts that insist on masking schoolchildren are acting in defiance of the science and, arguably, in contravention of state law. They also are acting against the express wishes of most Virginia parents as shown by Youngkin’s election as governor.

For this reasons, school districts ought to allow parents to decide whether their children should be masked, especially while the issue works its way through the judicial system. That is the right, just, and honorable thing to do.

Instead, schools are punishing students for following a lawful gubernatorial executive order. This is wrong and unconscionable, and the school administrators who are doing this ought to be held accountable by their school boards and by the parents whom they are supposed to serve.

Feature photo credit: Parents protest against school mask mandates and remote learning in Trenton, New Jersey, June 3, 2021, courtesy of Jose F. Moreno, in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

To Save Ukraine, Call Out Germany

To Save Ukraine, Call Out Germany

By John R Guardiano on January 23, 2022

German-Russian collusion was a problem in the 1930s and it is a problem today.

One would think that, after starting two world wars and planning and executing the genocide of European Jews and the mass murder of millions of non-Jews, Germany would feel a sense of moral obligation toward the Ukrainians and East Europeans now threatened by Russian military imperialism.

But alas, one would be wrong. Germany, in fact, has been working to appease Putin’s Russia:

In truth, Germany has a soft spot for Russia and is especially soft on Russian military imperialism and tyranny.

This Germanic weakness dates back to at least the 1930s, with the signing of the notorious 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in which Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany sanctioned each other’s imperialist ambitions.

This axis of evil, if you will, resulted in Russian and German military invasions of Poland, Finland, parts of Romania, and the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. With the exception of Finland, these countries then were enslaved for decades by the Nazis and the Communists.

Germany Today. Of course, Germany today is not the same country that it was when Adolf Hitler ruled. It is a free and democratic country. And while Russia is not free, it is a far cry from the Soviet totalitarian state that it was under Joseph Stalin.

Still, for countries as for people, old habits die hard. Russia still harbors a desire to subsume Ukraine and to dominate its neighbors. Germany, meanwhile, maintains a disconcerting moral indifference to the plight of other European countries.

Shame Germany. What should the United States and other freedom-loving countries like Great Britain do? Simple: call out and shame Germany. Call a spade a spade. Tell it like it is. Be publicly frank and blunt.

Let every nation know: Germany is actively facilitating the Russian military conquest of Ukraine. Germany cares more about Russian oil and gas than it does about the the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other European countries.

Germany is not a good or reliable ally. Germany is morally obtuse and indifferent.

Redeployment. And then immediately announce plans to redeploy all 34,000 U.S. military troops from Germany into Poland and the Baltic states, where they are most needed, most welcome, and will do the most geo-strategic good.

Then and only then might we avert a Russian military invasion of Ukraine.

Feature photo credit: from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a photo by the Associated Press:  “(Left to right:) German diplomat Friedrich Gaus, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Sovet leader Joseph Stalin, and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov in the Kremlin on August 23, 1939.”

Mask Diversion

Mask Diversion

By John R Guardiano on January 18, 2022

Mask fetishists are pushing higher-quality respirators and surgical masks to stop or slow COVID, but they don’t have a scientific leg to stand on.

Now that cloths masks have been shown to be useless at stopping the spread of viral respiratory infections, mask fetishists are pushing respirators and surgical masks (N95s and KN95s) to stop COVID. Are they right to do so?

Evidence. Let’s look at the empirical and scientific evidence.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claims that masks “are effective at reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, when worn consistently and correctly…

“Properly fitted respirators, [including N95s], provide the highest level of protection.” However, it is important, says the CDC, “to check that [your mask] fits snugly over your nose, mouth, and chin,” and therein lies the rub.

Can people—especially young school-age children—reasonably be expected to wear a tightly fitted mask all day when interacting with others?

The undesirability of being masked, especially with a tightly fitted respirator or surgical mask, is obvious. Masks are irritating and they can cause health problems, especially when worn incorrectly and for prolonged periods of time. Masks also inhibit social interaction and communication.

For these reasons, no one enjoys being masked. Which is why there is good reason to doubt that these higher-quality masks would do much to stop or slow the spread of COVID in the general population (as opposed to a tightly contained surgical room).

Michael Osterholm and his team of researchers at the University of Minnesota, for instance, found that, since the beginning of the pandemic roughly a fourth of the population has consistently worn their masks loosely and incorrectly, under their nose, with plenty of room for viral leakage.

Is there any reason to think that people would be more fastidious about how they wear respirators and surgical masks?

Mask Study. The media has trumpeted the one and only randomized controlled trial involving respirators and N95 masks; but, in fact, this study showed only a very modest reduction in the spread of COVID. And it occurred in a poor country, Bangladesh, that bears little resemblance to the United States.

“The study did not find a significant impact of masks on coronavirus spread,” writes U.C. Berkeley Professor Benjamin Recht.

My takeaway is that a complex intervention including an educational program, free masks, encouraged mask wearing, and surveillance in a poor country with low population immunity and no vaccination showed at best a modest reduction in infection

Needless to say, and as this pandemic has shown, the American people are fiercely independent and not easily led or corralled into compliance. We are a vast, diverse, and unruly continental nation.

For many of us, “live free or die” is a way of life. Good luck, then, achieving the same results here as the researchers allegedly achieved in Bangladesh with surgical masks.

And even if universal masking here were as effective as the researchers claim it was in Bangladesh, is it worth the costs and tradeoffs involved?

Unimpressive Results. As Professor Recht observes, “community masking improved an individual’s risk of infection by a factor of only 1.1x… That’s not a lot of risk reduction.” In the MRNA vaccine trials, by contrast, the risk of symptomatic infection was reduced by a factor of 20x.

Moreover, the effect size in the study is “too small to inform policymaking.” Ostensibly because of masking, only 20 fewer people out of more than 340,000 participants were found to be seronegative or free of COVID.

“The corresponding efficacy is 11%, still woefully low.” The study thus lacks “statistical significance,” Recht writes.

The bottom line: there is little reason to believe that even higher-quality respirators and surgical masks (N95s and KN95s) would do much to stop or slow the spread of COVID in the general population.

Real-world settings and everyday social interactions simply are not analogous to a surgical room. And the one randomized controlled trial involving respirators and N95 masks yielded unimpressive results that are unlikely to be replicated in the United States and other freedom-loving countries.

Instead of wasting time on masks, public health authorities should focus on what works: vaccines, social distancing, and therapeutics. Masks are a mass diversion.

Feature photo credit: a registered nurse wears an N95 mask in the acute care unit of Harborview Medical Center, Friday, Jan. 14, 2022, in Seattle, Washington (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson), courtesy of KTLA Los Angeles.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Mask Lies

Lies, Damn Lies, and Mask Lies

By John R Guardiano on January 17, 2022

Public health experts now admit what the empirical and scientific evidence has shown all along: cloth masks don’t work.

Like a bad dream that won’t go away, our public health experts’ unhealthy mask fetish continues, albeit with an important qualification:

Public health experts now acknowledge that cloth masks—which they foisted upon the American people for at least the first 18 months of this pandemic—don’t stop or slow the the spread of viral respiratory infections.

“Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations,” admits CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and visiting professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.

“I wish we’d get rid of the term masking,” adds Michael Osterholm, Director of Infectious Disease, Research and Policy, at the University of Minnesota. “Because, in fact, it implies anything you put in front of your face works…

We know today that many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out—either [that] you’re breathing out or you’re breathing in.

Mr. Osterholm made those comments more than five months ago, Aug. 2, 2021; and Dr. Wen’s comments were recorded by CNN three weeks ago.

CDC. Yet, only three days ago (Fri., Jan. 14, 2022), did the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finally acknowledge (sort of) this empirical, scientific reality.

I say sort of because the CDC still refuses to acknowledge that the efficacy of cloth masks has not been demonstrated in any real-world population setting (as opposed to an artificial laboratory setting). “Masking,” asserts the CDC

is a critical public health tool for preventing spread of COVID-19, and it is important to remember that any mask is better than no mask.

Historical Evidence. This is simply not true, as even mask fetishists Mr. Osterholm and Dr. Wen readily acknowledge. And while cloth masks are even less effective against the more contagious and fast-spreading Omicron variant, their utility against any respiratory virus, COVID included, is sorely lacking.

“More than a century after the 1918 influenza pandemic,” write researchers from the Cato Institute,

examination of the efficacy of masks has produced a large volume of mostly low- to moderate-quality evidence that has largely failed to demonstrate their value in most settings.

“COVID is so dangerous,” notes Cato’s Thomas A. Firey, “that masking doesn’t provide much benefit—and cotton masks seem to provide no benefit at all.”

In short, the evidence is clear, consistent, and definitive: cloth masks don’t work. They don’t stop or slow the spread of viral respiratory infections. Let’s end the charade and give up the fetish—and let’s focus, instead, on things that really do work: vaccines, social distancing, and therapeutics.

Feature photo credit: Screen shots of Dr. Leana Wen and Michael Osterholm from the PBS News Hour and CSPAN, respectively.

Why Is Russia Now Threatening Ukraine?

Why Is Russia Now Threatening Ukraine?

By John R Guardiano on January 14, 2022

Biden’s weakness gave license to Putin’s aggression.

When, last August, Joe Biden abjectly surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban, he and his administration  said this was necessary because the United States has no strategic interests there and must pivot, instead, to confront a rising China.

Never mind that, as William Lloyd Stearman points out, Bagram Air Base is strategically located “about 400 miles west of China and 500 miles east of Iran.” This, Stearman writes, is obviously “a good place to have American assets.”

U.S. Surrender in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, the President opted to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and abandon Bagram to the Taliban. Mr. Biden pretended that his decision to surrender would not have deleterious and far-reaching strategic consequences.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin has proven Joe Biden wrong. The Russian dictator has amassed more than 100,000 troops and advanced military equipment along the Russian-Ukraine border, while demanding hegemonic control over Ukraine and other neighboring countries.

“We are concerned,” says White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, “that the Russian government is preparing for an invasion in Ukraine that may result in widespread human rights violations and war crimes should diplomacy fail to meet their objectives.”

Indeed, not since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 has the world seen such a brazen assault on  the sovereignty and territorial integrity of an independent nation-state.

Why now? Because Putin has taken the measure of Joe Biden and realizes that our President is unwilling to protect the American national interest in Afghanistan or Europe.

In fact, Biden has pledged not to deploy U.S. ground troops or military advisers to Ukraine, and he has been reticent to arm the Ukrainian military for fear of provoking Putin.

As Bret Stephens observes, Putin and other anti-American dictators watched the American debacle in Afghanistan and concluded that “the United States is a feckless power.

“The current Ukraine crisis,” Stephens writes, “is as much the child of Biden’s Afghanistan debacle as the last Ukraine crisis [in 2014] was the child of Obama’s Syria debacle.”

In short, weakness is provocative. Weakness begets aggression. Weakness courts disaster. And weakness can have deleterious strategic consequences as we are now learning in Ukraine.

Featured photo credit: Joe Bidden and Vladimir Putin, courtesy of Fox News.