Forcing Kids to Wear Masks Is Bad Policy

On July 27, 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held a roundtable discussion at the state Capitol that focused on mask mandates in schools.

Forcing kids to wear masks is bad policy. Parents are best equipped to decide whether they want their kids to wear a mask in school. Neither bureaucrats in Washington nor local authorities should be able to override the decision of the parents." — Governor Ron DeSantis

EXCERPTS FROM VIDEO:

Gov DeSantis:
Dr McDonald from psychiatric perspective dealing with kids. How do you view the idea, the whole notion of the masking in school, forcing them to wear those. Have you seen negative ramifications from that, and do you think it’s a good thing to force masks, or do you think it should be mask optional in K-12 schools?”

Dr Mark McDonald:
Thank you Governor. My position is simple. Masking children is child abuse.

There is no evidence to support the contention that masks prevent the transmission of respiratory illness through viruses at all. There is substantial evidence that shows that children have been medically, physically, and psychologically harmed by mandatory mask mandates.

I said this and I maintain this position from last April of 2020, and I continue my position today unchanged. In fact, I even reinforce this position.

I’ve seen hundreds of children in the last year come to my practice who are coughing, spitting, sick in the throat, streptococcal infections, conjunctivitis, impetigo, allergic reactions, panic attacks. All from masks. Not a single child has benefitted medically from wearing a mask and they’ve all been hurt. I had one come into my practice last week. He’s been in lockdown in his home for over a year. He has anxiety. He hasn’t been able to play with his friends. He hasn’t been able to attend school except through Zoom. He’s attached to a keyboard. He brought the keyboard with him. He wouldn’t look me in the face. He was wearing a mask in my office, as was his mother. She told me that he can’t attend sleepovers now. He’s not able to leave her to go to play therapy. Why? Because he has to wear a mask and if he takes the mask off, he becomes scared. He has separation anxiety.

My autistic patients are even worse. They can’t wear the masks. So when they take the masks off, they have to leave wherever they are and go back to their home because they're not able to fly, they're not able to play, they’re not able to attend their theatre groups, their sports.

I am appalled that we’re even having this discussion. Every thoughtful rational adult knows that children do not need to have their faces covered. More children died of influenza last year than ostensibly died of all of the variants combined. And yet, we never ask children to wear masks during flu season. Why are we asking them to wear masks now? There is strong evidence, even as of last week, when Dr. Marty Makary published his report in Johns Hopkins Journal. After studying 44 thousand cases of children supposedly infected with this virus, not a single healthy child actually died from it. All the deaths were in children that suffered from severe illness such as leukemia or morbid obesity.

We have studies as early as April from last year out of Germany and Lower Saxony that show that children in schools not wearing masks actually helped prevent transmission of infection to their teachers, who were worse off when their teachers were staying home with their own families. i.e. children are actually a sink to the transfer of infection. They do not transfer infection to adults. They do not get sick and die themselves.

So the only valid argument to make for masking children, is that it protects them or it protects adults - neither is valid, neither is substantiated. On the other hand, there is substantial evidence that they're being harmed, physically and emotionally. Depression and anxiety had gone up three hundred and four hundred percent in the last year. In the four counties in Southern California, the coroners showed teenage and child suicide increased between 2019 and 2020 year over year, increased.

Mental illness is a catastrophe in this country primarily due to lockdowns in children. But the masks is not helping. The masks are nothing more than a symbol of fear and anxiety. They do nothing to help us medically. They're destroying our country and we need to take them off of our children's faces and we need to let them roam and breathe freely.

Gov. DeSantis:
Have you noticed… you go back pre covid, when kids go to school, kids play, it’s just kind of normal, and then with Covid obviously there are a lot of places in Los Angeles where a lot of kids couldn't even get back into school in person. But then even in areas where they had it, they're basically being taught that the mask is the number one symbol to view themselves and each other as primarily vectors of a disease rather than just human beings. Have you seen that? And what ramifications does that have for their upbringing?

Dr Mark McDonald:
Well, this has become a medical apartheid state. You have people who do not wear masks, you have people who do wear masks and those who aren't wearing masks, and I'm pointing specifically to children In this case, are viewed as dangerous, or viewed as immoral, or are viewed as non-compliant. In other words, they're bad. So even children who don't want to wear masks were forced to wear them, feel terrible about this, but they don't have any choice because if they don't wear their masks, they're ostracized. Children cannot co-exist in my city anyway with mask mandates if they don't wear the mask.

And even without the mask mandate, there are still some women, mothers, fathers, who will not let their children play with other children who don't wear masks because they think that without the mask, their child is going to make them sick. So it really is a kind of a stain, it's a sign for other children to note that when you have a mask on, you're a good boy or a good girl. If you don't have it, you're not.

I think that's a very important visible symbol of separation that we underestimate. A vaccine is one thing, you don't see a vaccine and unless you disclose the information or are forced to, nobody knows if you have a vaccine. But you certainly know if you have a mask on, and kids see that right away. When kids see the other kids with masks or without masks, they make judgments, they make opinions, and they behave in concert with them.