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COVID-19
01/27/2023

Why N95 Masks Fail to Stop the Spread
By Megan Mansell Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been assured that community...
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Cross-posted here.
About the authors:
Patricia Rice Doran, Ed.D., is a parent of six and an associate professor of special education; Chad Doran, Ph.D., is a parent of six and an adjunct professor of information studies. They write here in their personal capacities and their views are their own.
As some experts have pointed out, it is inexplicable that, 22 months in, we still have little data about what school mitigation measures actually prevent coronavirus spread and which do not. Available data suggests mandatory masks for students are not linked to reduced transmission. Further, there is worrisome data suggesting masks may impact students’ physical and mental well-being, creating ethical concerns for the continuous use of masks in schools.
Experts have advocated for large cluster trials of student masking in preventing transmission across different school districts to settle the question of whether they truly help to limit coronavirus spread. We endorse this idea wholeheartedly, as parents as well as educators. It is concerning that the CDC and so many state departments of health have made blanket recommendations without devoting resources to examining this issue with rigor.
But we need more. We must consider the cost of every intervention and mandate in terms of its ethical foundation and impact on overall well-being–especially in light of the ready availability of vaccines and therapeutics to mitigate illness severity. This is particularly true when mandating measures for children, who don’t get a second chance at childhood or development. It is critical to evaluate the larger developmental context of mandatory all-day masking, and equally critical to ask hard questions about the ethical basis of our mandates when we lack this information.
There’s no reason to fear objective, well-designed, honest research on this topic. If the data shows masks don’t impact health, well-being or learning, we can all take a deep breath and turn the temperature down a bit. If the data indicates masks don’t impact school transmission either, then districts and parents can make their own choices. And if the data shows that mask-wearing does impact students’ physical, academic or social experience, then our schools and institutions have important and nuanced ethical decisions to make.
Such examination is particularly critical as calls begin for routine masking during flu and cold season. Of course, quantitative comparisons will be massively confounded, but probably no more so than CDC’s existing studies of mask use in schools. Substantial effort may be required to stratify data by student, class or school mask-wearing status, and it is important to gain parent input and participation as well as educators’, in this year when parents have voiced so many concerns about COVID-19 schooling. Below, we outline ten important areas where we lack quality data:
In the meantime, schools must also honestly consider the ethics of masking all children, all day, in all settings when we still lack much of this information. The scientific community mobilized to conduct and finalize research at an extraordinary rate in order to develop treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. We need similar urgency around this topic, which currently affects millions of American children, a hundred and eighty days a year or more. Indeed, if we can’t trust reason, data and the scientific method to resolve those concerns, then we have problems even more urgent, and far- reaching, than COVID-19.
Patricia Rice Doran, Ed.D., is a parent of six and an associate professor of special education; Chad Doran, Ph.D., is a parent of six and an adjunct professor of information studies. They write here in their personal capacities and their views are their own.
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