Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to CNN’s medical advisor Dr. Leana Wen, kids need weekly testing and continuous wearing of medical grade N95 biological masks to prevent the spread of Covid in schools.
CNN Medical Analyst Wen: Kids Need Weekly Testing, N95 Masks ‘Cloth Masks Are Not Enough’
PAM KEY 10 Aug 2021
CNN medical contributor Dr. Leana Wen said Tuesday on “The Situation Room” that when children return to school, they should wear N95 or at least a three-ply surgical masks and be tested weekly for coronavirus.
Anchor Wolf Blitzer said, “Dr. Wen nearly 94,000 cases of coronavirus in children were reported in the past week alone here in the United States. What is it going to take to get kids back to school safely?”
…
Read more (includes video): https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/08/10/cnn-medical-analyst-wen-kids-need-weekly-testing-n95-masks-cloth-masks-are-not-enough/
I used a P95 mask, an industrial version of the N95 mask, during the outbreak last year in my local area. The idea of wearing such a mask for more than a few hours is utterly absurd, the longest I’ve worn one during a lockdown is half an hour, long enough for a quick dash into the supermarket.
There have been cases of people fainting at the wheel and causing a traffic accident, because they were wearing a N95 mask, presumably due to oxygen deprivation – its a real struggle to breath through a high spec mask, especially if you are doing anything physical. My concern is exactly the same thing could happen to kids, if they are forced to wear high spec masks all day at school.
And there is a real chance wearing a mask does not make any difference to your risk of contracting Covid, the virus is a lot smaller than the 0.3 micron particles the mask is designed to stop. I wore a mask because I hoped it might make a difference, not because I was convinced it would.
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N95 mask appears to be effective for COVID compared to cloth and surgical masks, ( I have previously posted the S. Korean Mask studies). The real question is about actual risk. I don’t know what the risk is. Which is more important the risk or the mask in response or the mask as a political alignment? N95 masks make me sleepy in about 4 minutes. The teachers would freak out wearing N95 masks. If there is real overwhelming risk, then N95 masks would make sense and would be a better option than the virtual classroom (a horrid option). BUT before we go all freaky on N95 masks we need to take a good look at the data related to the children who are being hospitalized for COVID/DELTA. Are these the kids being admitted medically 2-3 times a year for chronic severe pediatric diseases and then testing positive for COVID, (we all know about the false positive rate for the COVID test and the COVID admissions payola game)? Are they kids who are chronically ill and actually contracting COVID? Are they mostly healthy kids contracting COVID? Until, we answer these questions, and I am sure CNN hasn’t, then we have to assume this is a political push to keep the hysteria bus rolling. Children who are ill should be protected from COVID, (i.e. masks, isolation, vaccines, Virtual school etc) but do we really have to worry about the healthy kids. Can’t parents make decisions about how to protect themselves and their kids? My family has all had COVID and we have all had the vaccine….why should my 16 year old son wear a mask in school…it’s nuts. I am glad he is homeschooled, but I will be paying big bucks to send my kid to college so she can wear a N95 mask through her Freshman year….it’s heart breaking.
The switcheroo…
Tell this to the Canadian nurses, who sued Canada claiming masks don’t work. They sued Canada, and won.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/union-says-ontario-nurses-can-t-be-forced-to-wear-masks-in-flu-season-1.3222702
Tell this to Anthony Fauci, who wrote a study that facemaks caused more deaths because of bacteria than the flu.
https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/198/7/962/2192118
The only study I have found that shows masks work is based on a computer model. I have asked and asked for a study using RCT — the so-called gold standard of testing — showing masks worked. I have many that showed they didn’t, but none using RCT that showed they did. In fact, as of now, I have 20 studies showing masks don’t work over several decades, plural.
One problem is that people are forced to wear masks where viruses do not spread and not where viruses do spread. You don’t have to wear a mask at home, but common sense tells you that most people get sick because the disease runs through the home.
“but common sense tells you that most people get sick because the disease runs through the home.”
Not only common sense but there was a report about the middle of last year, in New York, showing that the majority of infections came from in-house spread.
It was pretty quickly memory-holed.
Obama has shown us that masks and vaccines are not needed, That sea levels are not rising, and John jerry has proven to us that the climate scam is nothing but a tax scam, to control us.. CNN msnbc are pure Anti-American cancer..
Agreed, climate change is a tax scam. We pay the the tax to Big Energy like a state and federal sales tax and Big Energy pays the government and our representation becomes proxied by Big Energy. This is why Big Energy is lobbying for carbon taxes at State and Federal levels and pushing states to pass laws to prohibit the average citizen from going off grid. It is a big power grab by global energy to undermine our electoral representation. More centralized political power means greater control over the markets at a time when there is a massive glut of hydrocarbon fuel. It’s time to update our anti-trust laws to deal with the globalist corporate attack on American democracy.
Actually, it’s sorta seeming like progressive Democrats are a pure anti-American cancer. Certainly anti-freedom. Unless, of course, you feel being forced to agree with someone is freedom.
THIS is what you can expect from wearing a worthless mask for extended periods.
I guess the vaccine is not working 🤔
Eric,
Thanks for raising the issue! At this point it is obvious that the DemoKKKrat party and their media sycophants MUST have the ChiCom virus panic ratcheted up to enable the voter fraud necessary for most of their recent election wins!
Putting masks on children, and preventing them from in-person schooling is nothing less than child abuse! The Dims, and their major backers like the teacher’s unions and the technocrats, do not care one whit for American school kids; hence their demands for concessions and controls from the public!
As any intelligent evolutionary biologist could tell you, these “leaky” vexxines are a recipe for the rapid development of variants. It now appears that the variants are arising in areas where the vexxines were tested; leading one to ask again why we are still suppressing the safe and effective use of therapeutics, and pumping gene altering, experimental compounds into our bodies!
P.S.- Irish study from March of this year shows that masks on kids are harmful, both physically AND psychologically! NO NET benefit + high chance of harm = CHILD ABUSE!!!
“Thanks for raising the issue! At this point it is obvious that the DemoKKKrat party and their media sycophants MUST have the ChiCom virus panic ratcheted up to enable the voter fraud necessary for most of their recent election wins!”
How much crackpot conspiracy can one sentence contain?
“P.S.- Irish study from March of this year shows that masks on kids are harmful,”
Really, got a link?
Trump Russia colluuuusion moron
Trump tax fraud….
You really are that dumb
So … you’re a Democrat. Figures!
Nope
It’s a simple intelligence test; once again you fail!
So no link? I guess no study?
“The Dims, and their major backers like the teacher’s unions and the technocrats, do not care one whit for American school kids”
Wrong!
These practices are right in line with the desired conditioning that is the over-riding goal of the school system.
There is a simple way to prevent the spread of covid in public schools.
Don’t send your kids there. A secondary benefit is they won’t be indoctrinated by politicians and union members who run the operations either.
For N95 masks to work properly they have to be properly fitted. One of the criteria is whether the person wearing the mask is psychologically capable of wearing the mask. Not sure that 8 year olds can meet that criteria. I seriously doubt that kids can properly wear an N95.
I do want to correct a misconception. The virus is smaller than the filter capabilities of the mask but the idea that is like a chain link fence is not correct. The better analogy is that of mile wide thickness of chain link fences pushed together. That does have an effect on how easy it is to breath but also how well a virus (or a proverbial mosquito) will get through.
The real issue with an N95 is leakage around the seals. This is why fit testing is so important.
Finally, looking at the real numbers from last week, hitting almost 94,000 children is only accurate if you include young adults. The right way to look at that number though is that now, almost 94,000 children no longer have to worry about getting COVID because they are immune. Given that they have little risk of serious disease, getting COVID actually works to their benefit.
If I were the cynical type, I would say that masks are very effective for their intended purpose, which is to make people fearful of everybody else.
Oh, wait..
N95 masks are not designed to properly fit the faces of children, and without a tight seal, are no more effective than simple cloth or paper ear-loop masks. And they are a lot more expensive. Even if you could find a size that fit properly (xx-small ?), they are uncomfortably tight and force the wearer to breath harder. Most children already dislike school; this policy would make them hate it with a passion, which is not conducive to education, to say the least.
In research I have read a large fraction of mask wearing children are at times sleepy and inattentive. Surely the goal of an educational institution, no?
“sleepy and inattentive” I think IS the goal of our public schools. Helps to create a permanent worker class that won’t be able to challenge the “elites”
They don’t do “education” in public schools any more. They do Schooling … a horse of an entirely different colour. Allowing real education in schools would be tantamount to funding “progressive” government’s own downfall. The purpose of public schooling is to reduce mental freedom while increasing social dependency.
Are Blitzer and Wen wearing N-95’s all day at work? The other CNN talking heads?
“Anchor Wolf Blitzer said, “Dr. Wen nearly 94,000 cases of coronavirus in children were reported in the past week alone here in the United States. What is it going to take to get kids back to school safely?”
Seriously? And Wolfie knows this is a fact why? If kiddos are catching it now, all of a sudden, how do we know this is covid and not flu or some other respiratory bug? And an upper-respiratory bug going around in August in the USA? Highly unlikely anyway.
I hypothesize that this large number is only because so many kids are getting tested , either because they are going on vacation/plane flights or going back to school and need negative tests. Most probably don’t have any symptoms and few have serious cases. The media always uses the biggest number they can to fear monger
While I don’t trust much that the major media says, they are saying there is a large increase in number of chindren needing hospitalization. If there is any truth in that, it is much more significant than any positive irrelevant test numbers.
But that is the big question, is there any truth to kiddos being hospitalized for covid? It seems unlikely this is the case, especially in summer. The kiddos in Portugal are doing fine.
Texas Tribune recently reported 5800 children hospitalized over a 7-day period in August. Many “reporters” ran with this. Nobody seemed to catch the correction: 5800 was the total number for the entire pandemic. They then “corrected” their count to report 783 from July 1 to August 9 (a 40-day period, not 7-day).
Stuff like this makes me very suspicious of the reporting. Especially since these “mistakes” never seem to under count.
Pamela,
Once again CNN is pushing the casedemic! Back when Trump was still in office, the PCR tests were run at a higher number of cycles; this gave many false positives, inflating cases! Once the Dims got the Bai Den usurpation installed, the CDC decided to lower the number of cycles recommended; thus lowering cases to make the new regime look effective!
Now with 2022 fast approaching, and panic needed once again for their voter fraud program to work, the Dims want to emphasize cases again; especially of the vexxine variants! Once a virus is endemic, the number of cases is largely meaningless! What one should be looking at is number of hospitalizations and deaths! For children without comorbidities, these remain essentially zero! And children that get exposed to the ChiCom virus will likely have years of natural immunity; even against the variants!
Like the “mistake” in reporting the numbers in Texas, this may very well be the total since the beginning of the pandemic, not a weekly measure. I would be very skeptical about anything the lamestream media reports, especially CNN.
After a while, wearing masks, excessive use of hand sanitizers, and social distancing prevents all of us from continually exercising our immune systems as happens when we normally interact with the general public. We need strong immune systems to prevent many respiratory illnesses. These illnesses are now starting to show an increase in the U.S.
The Left’s obsession with trying to control public health is having the unintended consequence of decreasing public health. It’s like preventing U.S. Olympic weight lifters from working out and still expecting them to optimally perform during competition.
Yes, thus the pandemics, endemics, disorders, respiratory conditions, and physiological weaknesses that plague humanity past, present, and progressive.
“These illnesses are now starting to show an increase in the U.S.”
Which will obviously require further government intervention by way of more lockdowns and mask mandates to keep people from ever being sick.
Is it really an unintended consequence?
Take a knee, beg, good girl, boy, whatever. There are diverse precedents.
Nailed it.
Masks efficacy is limited by physical, mechanical, and behavioral characteristics.
Postoperative wound infections and surgical face masks: a controlled study
Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers
Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses
Miles Monroe would become the politically incorrect San Marcos dictator in “Sleeper”. He promulgated the edict not only that everyone under 16 is henceforth 16, but that: ” All citizens will be required to change their underwear every half hour … [and] underwear will be worn on the outside, so we can check.”
Miles when pressed on science declared: “I don’t believe in science … science is an intellectual dead end.” And when asked what then he believed in replied: “Sex & death – 2 things that come once in a lifetime … but at least after death you’re not nauseous.”
When Miles asked his lady friend “Why do you believe in God?” She replied: “Well, I believe that there’s somebody out there who watches over us.” To which Miles rejoined – “Unfortunately it’s the government.”
Seems LosAngles city council has joined NewYork City in requiring proof of a mRNA coronavirus jab for entry into indoor establishments. Paris gendarmes are checking papers of proof of mRNA jab for similar circumstances & the military is on the streets of some Australian cities supporting restrictions.
“What is it going to take to get kids back to school safely?”
Is this a trick question? Open the school doors and let them in. That’s how.
Every flu season we don’t worry about schools being “unsafe” for kids and we don’t make them wear masks despite the fact that influenza is more deadly for children than COVID-19. According to, you know, science.
See for yourself:
?resize=600%2C577&ssl=1
Thanks for the graphic.
stinkerp,
From the graphs you provide it is clear that ALL pools and spas must be removed! We can never achieve Zero-Drowning without some sacrifice!
All bathtubs and many larger sinks will have to be childproofed as well! If it saves even one life it is worth the effort, and cleanliness, after all, is much too close to Godliness for most Progressives!
I have two kinds of N95 plain and the ones with the valve I originally purchased them for woodworking and sanding automotive paint work. I just cut a hole in the ones with the valve so I can breathe
I would not be surprised if related article is titled:
CNN Merges with Chinese Company Manufacturing N95 Masks
So what? Of that 94K how many have died … or even became noticeable ill? We’re NOT going to end illness in humans. Do Democrats and other mindless progressives actually believe that is possible?
“prevent the spread of Covid” This right here is f**king insane. You can not stop the “spread” of any corona virus, they are ubiquitous throughout ALL oxygen breathing living things on this planet. This is the same mentally retarded crap as claiming you can remove CO2 from the atmosphere. If these morons refuse to accept reality then it is incumbent upon actual human beings to compel them to accept reality. This mentally retarded sh*t is a cancer in human society and we MUST eradicate it and all who carry it. THEY are the danger to Humanity, not the f*cking flu.
Who listens to anything CNN has to say?
Not me
Why do these bloviating jerks at CCN think it’s their place to make US national COVID19 mitigation policy-on-the-run? Or to force their dippy versions of intelligence, sanity and media script-reading hysteria down everyone’s throat as a ‘reality’? Since when did their dismal scurrilous click-bait-driven opinion-making and ratbag agenda drivel become the gospel-truth to anyone? Anyone at all?
Most absurd video of media’s hurricane hype: Dramatic CNN reporter …
Anderson Cooper says idea of him dramatizing hurricane is ‘frankly idiotic’
So now these profoundly dishonest grandstanding hype-merchants now offer free hysterical advice on the type of mask that school children should wear?
Guardians of the truth.
What about their poor, little eyes and ears? Virii could sneak in there. What about catching it from toilet seats? How often is the air exchanged in their classrooms? Got to do a big study on that.