Fact-check: Students wearing masks at school does reduce spread of COVID-19
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Fact-check: Students wearing masks at school does reduce spread of COVID-19
Note to readers: We’ve made this story free as a vital public service to our North State communities. If you are able, help power local journalism. Subscribe to the your local newspaper. Your support goes a long way in helping us serve you with meaningful, in-depth coverage.
A myriad of factors are dividing communities over COVID-19, but a desire to do the best for children growing up in the pandemic is a shared goal.
Since the beginning of the school year, families across the country who want their children to have a normal experience have protested the implementation of mask-wearing indoors. In the North State, some families mobilized to present arguments against the requirement at school board meetings and passionately demand defying them.
The Record Searchlight spoke to two epidemiologists to fact-check the concerns that anti-mask proponents express.
Epidemiologists Dr. Arthur Reingold and Dr. Michael Osterholm said that many claims are being made without evidence. Reingold, who is the division head of epidemiology at University of California at Berkeley, dedicates his research to the prevention and control of infectious diseases.
Osterholm is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. He served on President Joe Biden’s Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board, worked as a state epidemiologist for 15 years, and co-authored the New York Times' bestselling book "Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs" in 2017.
The claim: Masks are ineffective at stopping or slowing the virus
Masking is a part of a hierarchy of environmental controls, said Osterholm.
Masking is only one of several steps people can take to breathe clean air and reduce their risk of being exposed to particles and droplets containing the airborne virus, Osterholm said. In addition to the masks, schools have to worry about the quality of air that's recirculating in buildings with rooms full of students.
Schools must use air filters to scrub the air free from the virus, Osterholm said.
From an occupational health and safety standpoint, masking is the last precaution communities can take to protect themselves from catching the virus, he said.
Osterholm said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has contributed to the confusion because its guidelines do not yet factor the virus has mutated and people are getting more sick from faster, more aggressive strains, such as the Delta variant.
In 2019-20, there was very little transmission in schools and serious illness in students.
"The CDC concluded that we can open schools safely with a limited number of actions to take to reduce transmissions, like ventilation," Osterholm said.
Then along came the Delta variant and it changed the scene, but the CDC did not update its recommendations, he added.
“So today, the fact that you have the CDC saying you can have students with cloth face coverings three feet apart from each other for more than 15 minutes and not call that a quarantine contact, for example is just, in a sense, not valid,” he said. “And we’re seeing school outbreaks all over the country right now. Because we went into the school year with the assumption that it wouldn’t be a problem.”
There is epidemiological evidence that students wearing masks in school does reduce transmission of the virus, Reingold added.
KN95 masks, N95 masks and surgical masks are more effective and should be preferred, he said. If families can’t get surgical masks, schools should supply them if possible. Cloth masks are not without utility, but are not as effective as surgical masks, he said.
The claim: Masks cause psychological damage to children
There is simply no evidence that this claim is true, Osterholm and Reingold said. There have been no studies that concluded wearing masks in schools damages the psychological health of children. Without the necessary data to support the claims, they cautioned people to be wary of misinformation.
“So, whether you say it’s anecdotal or not, I’m just saying there’s a great deal of mis- and disinformation in the public domain,” Osterholm said.
Families and teachers have options to overcome any hurdles, including the wearing of clear masks.
It is true that people are experiencing a mental health crisis on top of a pandemic, and for children, this can be even harder, according to the
However, there is no evidence that a child wearing a mask causes depression or anxiety — or that it is linked to mask wearing specifically.
The claim: Masks cause harmful effects, such as significant oxygen drop, dangerous carbon dioxide levels
There is no evidence to support this claim, Reingold said. There is misinformation circulating that children breathe in carbon dioxide when they wear masks.
The carbon dioxide molecules exhaled are smaller than the pores in masks, wrote Dr. Jennifer Veltman, chief of infectious diseases at Loma Linda University Health. In other words, a mask can’t restrict oxygen or carbon dioxide flow. A wearer may feel restricted. However, the physics is not consistent with that feeling.
The claim: School boa