Pointless to engage, yet… Other airborne viruses are prevalent (RSV for one) and can be very harmful, kids do get sick from Covid-19 and can end up in the hospital (they may recover more quickly but any hospitalization stresses the limited staffing in medicine these days), and just a quick reminder that kids don’t go to school w/o adults in the building. (At what age would they stop being kids and be more susceptible in your eyes? Does this mean you’d support college students and staff wearing masks? Respirators are such an easy fix! On the other hand, you and I can agree this has been a public health failure, though I think for different reasons.
Please don’t call Deaf people anything but Deaf. Deaf people have called themselves Deaf for centuries. “Hearing impaired” is a hearing invented and imposed term. It is a slur wrapped in a misguided desire to soften what needs no softening. Thanks.
Is a Mask That Covers the Mouth and Nose Free from Undesirable Side Effects in Everyday Use and Free of Potential Hazards?
Kai Kisielinski, Paul Giboni, [...], and Oliver Hirsch
Hi Jessica,
Could you please add this article to your reading list? I understand it does not fit your narrative. Although if you are interested in science, Please let me know what you think.
Conclusion from article:
In our work, we focused exclusively on the undesirable and negative side effects that can be produced by masks. Valid significant evidence of combined mask-related changes were objectified (p < 0.05, n ≥ 50%), and we found a clustered and common occurrence of the different adverse effects within the respective studies with significantly measured effects (Figure 2). We were able to demonstrate a statistically significant correlation of the observed adverse effect of hypoxia and the symptom of fatigue with p < 0.05 in the quantitative evaluation of the primary studies. Our review of the literature shows that both healthy and sick people can experience Mask-Induced Exhaustion Syndrome (MIES), with typical changes and symptoms that are often observed in combination, such as an increase in breathing dead space volume [22,24,58,59], increase in breathing resistance [31,35,60,61], increase in blood carbon dioxide [13,15,17,19,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,35], decrease in blood oxygen saturation [18,19,21,23,28,29,30,31,32,33,34], increase in heart rate [23,29,30,35], increase in blood pressure [25,35], decrease in cardiopulmonary capacity [31], increase in respiratory rate [15,21,23,34,36], shortness of breath and difficulty breathing [15,17,19,21,23,25,29,31,34,35,60,71,85,101,133], headache [19,27,29,37,66,67,68,71,83], dizziness [23,29], feeling hot and clammy [17,22,29,31,35,44,71,85,133], decreased ability to concentrate [29], decreased ability to think [36,37], drowsiness [19,29,32,36,37], decrease in empathy perception [99], impaired skin barrier function [37,72,73] with itching [31,35,67,71,72,73,91,92,93], acne, skin lesions and irritation [37,72,73], overall perceived fatigue and exhaustion [15,19,21,29,31,32,34,35,69] (Figure 2, Figure 3 and Figure 4).
Pediatric school-based speech-language pathologist weighing in here (late to the article, I know). There is not one single high-quality study that I know of - and I follow the studies - showing that masks which cover the lower face have any significant adverse effect on the speech and language development of typically developing children. Almost all early speech and language is acquired in the home setting, well before kids head off to school. Those few children who are adversely affected by masks in schools are kids who entered school with speech and language disorders. We have a variety of ways to work with those kids without putting their classmates at risk of these respiratory viruses.
And yes, I wear a mask at work (and everywhere else except at home). I provide language therapy while wearing a very good headband Powecom KN95 mask, and articulation therapy while wearing the one REALLY good window mask I've found. My students make as much progress as they did in the pre-COVID days when I never wore a mask of any sort. Masks are not a heavy lift, for teachers or for most kids. And the kids would wear them properly if only the adults around them would set the expectation and model the behavior. Why is this such a problem?
Pediatric school-based speech-language pathologist weighing in here (late to the article, I know). There is not one single high-quality study that I know of - and I follow the studies - showing that masks which cover the lower face have any significant adverse effect on the speech and language development of typically developing children. Almost all early speech and language is acquired in the home setting, well before kids head off to school. Those few children who are adversely affected by masks in schools are kids who entered school with speech and language disorders. We have a variety of ways to work with those kids without putting their classmates at risk of these respiratory viruses.
And yes, I wear a mask at work (and everywhere else except at home). I provide language therapy while wearing a very good headband Powecom KN95 mask, and articulation therapy while wearing the one REALLY good window mask I've found. My students make as much progress as they did in the pre-COVID days when I never wore a mask of any sort. Masks are not a heavy lift, for teachers or for most kids. And the kids would wear them properly if only the adults around them would set the expectation and model the behavior. Why is this such a problem?
Makes me think of Helen Lovejoy from The Simpsons: "Won't SOMEBODY think of the children?!?!??!"
And of the infamous Jewish Blood Libel which started at least 900 years ago with disappearance and/or death of a child.
Hegel allegedly once said, the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. It's funny and sad how this inability to learn from past mistakes shows up both in individuals and collectives, and how bizarrely exaggerated this appears in groups (think of climate change for another example).
What baffles me is why some people go to such extreme hyperbole as comparing mask mandates to the Holocaust. I don't think there's a lot of people who like wearing masks; they're irritating and inconvenient. But I've never seen people become this worked up over, say, seat belts in cars. It would be really interesting, I think, to hear a psychologist's perspective on why this particular issue provokes such an intense response.
Think of the children! Except for guns, the environment, and plague.
People, usually assholes, just make this stuff up. Masks work very well, and they don't cause whatever the problem of the week is.
Look at your sources Jess...
You are in denial 🤦♀️
They cry in the dark
So you can't see their tears
They hide in the light
So you can't see their fears
Forgive and forget
All the while
Love and pain become one and the same
In the eyes of a wounded child
Because hell, hell is for children
And you know that their little lives can become such a mess
Pointless to engage, yet… Other airborne viruses are prevalent (RSV for one) and can be very harmful, kids do get sick from Covid-19 and can end up in the hospital (they may recover more quickly but any hospitalization stresses the limited staffing in medicine these days), and just a quick reminder that kids don’t go to school w/o adults in the building. (At what age would they stop being kids and be more susceptible in your eyes? Does this mean you’d support college students and staff wearing masks? Respirators are such an easy fix! On the other hand, you and I can agree this has been a public health failure, though I think for different reasons.
Please don’t call Deaf people anything but Deaf. Deaf people have called themselves Deaf for centuries. “Hearing impaired” is a hearing invented and imposed term. It is a slur wrapped in a misguided desire to soften what needs no softening. Thanks.
So much time spent on moral goldpanning, I love that term by the way. Hope you had a chill weekend!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8072811/
Is a Mask That Covers the Mouth and Nose Free from Undesirable Side Effects in Everyday Use and Free of Potential Hazards?
Kai Kisielinski, Paul Giboni, [...], and Oliver Hirsch
Hi Jessica,
Could you please add this article to your reading list? I understand it does not fit your narrative. Although if you are interested in science, Please let me know what you think.
Conclusion from article:
In our work, we focused exclusively on the undesirable and negative side effects that can be produced by masks. Valid significant evidence of combined mask-related changes were objectified (p < 0.05, n ≥ 50%), and we found a clustered and common occurrence of the different adverse effects within the respective studies with significantly measured effects (Figure 2). We were able to demonstrate a statistically significant correlation of the observed adverse effect of hypoxia and the symptom of fatigue with p < 0.05 in the quantitative evaluation of the primary studies. Our review of the literature shows that both healthy and sick people can experience Mask-Induced Exhaustion Syndrome (MIES), with typical changes and symptoms that are often observed in combination, such as an increase in breathing dead space volume [22,24,58,59], increase in breathing resistance [31,35,60,61], increase in blood carbon dioxide [13,15,17,19,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,35], decrease in blood oxygen saturation [18,19,21,23,28,29,30,31,32,33,34], increase in heart rate [23,29,30,35], increase in blood pressure [25,35], decrease in cardiopulmonary capacity [31], increase in respiratory rate [15,21,23,34,36], shortness of breath and difficulty breathing [15,17,19,21,23,25,29,31,34,35,60,71,85,101,133], headache [19,27,29,37,66,67,68,71,83], dizziness [23,29], feeling hot and clammy [17,22,29,31,35,44,71,85,133], decreased ability to concentrate [29], decreased ability to think [36,37], drowsiness [19,29,32,36,37], decrease in empathy perception [99], impaired skin barrier function [37,72,73] with itching [31,35,67,71,72,73,91,92,93], acne, skin lesions and irritation [37,72,73], overall perceived fatigue and exhaustion [15,19,21,29,31,32,34,35,69] (Figure 2, Figure 3 and Figure 4).
Pediatric school-based speech-language pathologist weighing in here (late to the article, I know). There is not one single high-quality study that I know of - and I follow the studies - showing that masks which cover the lower face have any significant adverse effect on the speech and language development of typically developing children. Almost all early speech and language is acquired in the home setting, well before kids head off to school. Those few children who are adversely affected by masks in schools are kids who entered school with speech and language disorders. We have a variety of ways to work with those kids without putting their classmates at risk of these respiratory viruses.
And yes, I wear a mask at work (and everywhere else except at home). I provide language therapy while wearing a very good headband Powecom KN95 mask, and articulation therapy while wearing the one REALLY good window mask I've found. My students make as much progress as they did in the pre-COVID days when I never wore a mask of any sort. Masks are not a heavy lift, for teachers or for most kids. And the kids would wear them properly if only the adults around them would set the expectation and model the behavior. Why is this such a problem?
Pediatric school-based speech-language pathologist weighing in here (late to the article, I know). There is not one single high-quality study that I know of - and I follow the studies - showing that masks which cover the lower face have any significant adverse effect on the speech and language development of typically developing children. Almost all early speech and language is acquired in the home setting, well before kids head off to school. Those few children who are adversely affected by masks in schools are kids who entered school with speech and language disorders. We have a variety of ways to work with those kids without putting their classmates at risk of these respiratory viruses.
And yes, I wear a mask at work (and everywhere else except at home). I provide language therapy while wearing a very good headband Powecom KN95 mask, and articulation therapy while wearing the one REALLY good window mask I've found. My students make as much progress as they did in the pre-COVID days when I never wore a mask of any sort. Masks are not a heavy lift, for teachers or for most kids. And the kids would wear them properly if only the adults around them would set the expectation and model the behavior. Why is this such a problem?
Some things are cruel despite the “scientific evidence”. Masking children is reprehensible.
Makes me think of Helen Lovejoy from The Simpsons: "Won't SOMEBODY think of the children?!?!??!"
And of the infamous Jewish Blood Libel which started at least 900 years ago with disappearance and/or death of a child.
Hegel allegedly once said, the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. It's funny and sad how this inability to learn from past mistakes shows up both in individuals and collectives, and how bizarrely exaggerated this appears in groups (think of climate change for another example).
What baffles me is why some people go to such extreme hyperbole as comparing mask mandates to the Holocaust. I don't think there's a lot of people who like wearing masks; they're irritating and inconvenient. But I've never seen people become this worked up over, say, seat belts in cars. It would be really interesting, I think, to hear a psychologist's perspective on why this particular issue provokes such an intense response.
Thank you very much for your efforts!
Totally agree and thanks for writing this and all your essays.
I hope you will post on Substack your Medium post” Child Sick, Buy some Medicine”. Fantastic article.
Another of yours pointing out the need for people to wake up and stop believing the bullsh#%, brainwashing, gas lighting.
Money is useful but not a religion in itself. Yet every issue destroying our quality of life, begins with the singular worship of money.