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    Young kids are at low COVID risk in schools, but masking them could do long-term damage

    On Wednesday night at a CNN townhall, President Biden predicted the CDC is going to recommend kids who are unable to be vaccinated, those under the age of 12, “should probably be wearing a mask in school . . . That’s probably what’s going to happen.”

    Those statements follow other masking recommendations from the CDC, who recommend everyone aged 2 and over be masked until they are eligible to receive the vaccine.

    Here are a few other CDC recommendations you may be unaware of: The CDC recommends that pregnant couples use condoms or abstain from sex for the entire pregnancy, if the pregnant woman’s partner had a possible Zika virus exposure (possible Zika exposure covers most of the globe). And raw cookie dough? Forget about it.

    Unfortunately for us, unlike other ridiculous recommendations the CDC is famous for, school districts across the country are looking to the federal agency in order to make their masking rules for this coming school year. If your kids are in class and masked for yet another year, you’ll have these feckless and unelected federal bureaucrats to thank.

    Cameras are visible in the foreground as President Joe Biden accompanied by CNN journalist Don Lemon, right, appears at a CNN town hall at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 21, 2021.
    President Biden said he thinks the CDC will recommend unvaccinated children to wear masks while in school this fall.
    Andrew Harnik/AP

    It becomes an excuse for all sorts of terrible decisions. Some districts decided not to serve lunch in school, because kids have to take their masks off to eat. Recess is out. So is music. And if children suffer, who cares?

    We have the luxury of ignoring other ridiculous pronouncements from the CDC in every other area of our lives, but our kids can’t escape its reach. America’s kids are going to be trapped behind masks because of the CDC in classrooms and anywhere else in public.

    The question they can’t and won’t answer is: Why?

    We’re told that vaccinated American adults are safe to be in public, indoors and out, without masks, because of the protection that the vaccines offer. And for good reason; <a href=”http://&lt;!– wp:paragraph –> <p>The question they can’t and won’t answer is: Why?</p> 99% of hospitalizations and deaths in America are among the unvaccinated.

    Kindergarten students wear their masks and are separated by plexiglass during a math lesson at the Milton Elementary School, Tuesday, May 18, 2021, in Rye, N.Y.
    Data points to children less likely to contracting severe COVID-19 symptoms.
    Mary Altaffer, File/AP

    But here’s what they aren’t telling you: By virtue of being a child, they are more protected against the ill-effects of the virus vs. vaccinated individuals. The vaccine offers a great deal of protection, but being a child offers even more. Children are less at risk of severe COVID risk and death than vaccinated adults, according to the vast amount of data we have gathered over the last year and a half of the pandemic, and the last year of vaccine research.

    We are just beginning to learn about the ill-effects of masking on kids in particular: The psychological, developmental and social toll of having one’s face covered.

    The UK has decided to keep kids out of masks. “It’s important that primary schoolchildren don’t wear face coverings,” says Public Health England’s medical adviser Dr. Susan Hopkins. She explains that this is because COVID infection rates are low among their age group and wearing face coverings “could affect their development.”

    Unlike the other data we’ve gathered, we have never seen any research that indicates that masking children actually makes a dent in COVID cases. In a survey of cases in Florida among schools where masks were optional and required, the latter saw more cases per 100,000.

    Gym teacher Becky Ward, center, watches as fifth graders throw frisbees at the Milton Elementary School, Tuesday, May 18, 2021, in Rye, N.Y.
    Children under 12 years old cannot yet get vaccinated in the US.
    Mary Altaffer, File/AP

    It may be too much to ask for the CDC to actually take all of this data into account during their decision-making process, but unfortunately for America’s kids, the agency hasn’t been known for its nuance or sanity prior to COVID, and certainly not since, either.

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