An Open Letter to Schools and Parents Considering Mandating Masks for Students This Fall

Fear need not win. Mask choice is the proper compassionate AND scientific response.

I have said in past essays that medical choice is perhaps the most fundamental human and civil right. Nuremberg establishes “free and informed” choices and right of conscientious refusal especially over experimental drugs, and the Hippocratic Oath— “First, do no harm”— applies just as much to emotional, psychological, and mental injury as it does to physical injury.

The results are in from a perhaps well-intended but misguided attempt to protect children from Covid. On one side we have Sweden which decided to keep schools open and WITHOUT masks from the beginning, including in the Fall of 2020, when pretty much everyone was freaking out and wondering how to protect kids at schools. What happened? Early on, Sweden had a no child deaths and nearly four times LESS infection than neighboring Finland.

Sweden’s public health agency said in July keeping schools open during the pandemic did not result in a higher infection rate among its children compared to neighbouring Finland.

The report showed that severe cases of COVID-19 were very rare among both Swedish and Finnish children aged one to 19, with no deaths reported.

Children made up around 8.2% of the total number of COVID-19 cases in Finland, compared to 2.1% in Sweden.

That’s the scientific case. What about the moral case? Schoolchildren’s physiology, psychology, and emotional and social development were severely impacted by mandating masks, imposing lockdowns, and learning through isolated screens versus face-to-face. Obesity skyrocketed. Sedentary habits and junk food became a way to cope. Depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts increased substantially. Many kids went hungry and were stuck in home environments ill-equipped to take on the additional burden. From a statistical study in the Fall of 2020:

As large parts of the world are heading into a second wave of the pandemic, it is vital to know how school closures impact on students' progress, and be aware of the disproportionate damage to students from disadvantaged homes. With new school closures currently being discussed as a way to combat the pandemic, our study gives crucial input for decision-makers. The results are sobering: even in the ‘best-case’ scenario of a short lockdown and good infrastructure for remote learning, students learned little or nothing from home. Overall, these results highlight the urgency of meeting students’ educational needs and implementing measures to compensate for the progress already lost (my emphases).

Some may say that masking isn’t the same as lockdowns, but the same logic applies. The removal of human face-to-face has important physical, mental, and emotional consequences as well. I am compassionate to those who have chosen to use masks to make themselves feel secure, even if there is no scientific benefit at this point given hyper-transmissible Covid variants. I don’t feel it is my right to judge the choices another person makes over their own mental and emotional health.

However, that respect ought to go both ways. Others should not judge nor have the right to impose their choices on me or my children, out of respect for my choices over my physical, mental, and emotional health. Nor should this be imposed on schoolchildren who are forced by law to go to school. Vaccine choice and mask choice should be fundamental to governance and to human dignity.

So it was with a kind of “here-we-go-again” sinking feeling when I found that a nearby progressive school was back to considering mask mandates yet again in the Fall of 2022, even after all the things we have learned about fear-driven approaches to education and even after all the properly conducted scientific studies conclude there are NO benefits to masking AT ALL with reference to Covid.

In an Atlantic article published [at the beginning of 2022], Margery Smelkinson, an infectious disease scientist who works for the National Institutes of Health, highlights the lack of evidence in favor of school mask mandates. "Two years into this pandemic, keeping unproven measures in place is no longer justifiable," she and her co-authors write. "We reviewed a variety of studies—some conducted by the CDC itself, some cited by the CDC as evidence of masking effectiveness in a school setting, and others touted by media to the same end—to try to find evidence that would justify the CDC's no-end-in-sight mask guidance for the very-low-risk pediatric population, particularly post-vaccination. We came up empty-handed."

Vinay Prasad, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, makes the same point more emphatically in a recent Tablet article. Forcing students to wear face masks "isn't a matter of protecting children, their teachers, or their grandparents," he says. "It's delusional and dangerous cultlike behavior."

I have actually applied to work for this progressive school mentioned above, and I was very excited to enroll my fourteen year-old son at this school. This school was by all indications the OPPOSITE of a cult, a caring community committed to the individual development of a very socially, cognitively, and culturally diverse group of kids. The parents, teachers, and staff are very community-oriented and personal in their approach, and this turn toward possible mask mandates seemed oddly out of place with their high commitment to social engagement and relationship.

I was moved by compassion and what I called “heart meditation” to write a letter of support, of re-enchantment rather than disenchantment, hoping to embolden courage and high-frequency ideals and stand up for human warmth and care in the face of humanity-sapping, and anti-scientific restrictions. I let them know that science and care both supported compassionate mask choice, and I copy it below unedited. It is my hope that this same positive approach can be used at schools across the country, and all who feel that they would like to use the text from this letter in whole or in part are actively encouraged to do so.

I decided to heart meditate about our conversation on how best to support what you do, and the wonderful beings you teach, mentor, and care for.  In the process I was able to see some things clearly about my own ethic of care.  We  have all been through a lot over the last two years.  It has been a time of both trial and great revealing.  According to your accounts, this last year in particular has created great adversity and strain at [your school].

Now, growing fears of more Covid variants and future Covid waves have led to a justified concern about what to do and how to prepare for the present school year.

I believe the best ways to approach these concerns involve clarity, care, and critically-minded awareness of risks that take into account the anti-social, developmental, and personal harms created by isolation, lack of “face” time, screen-mediated learning, and fear and anxiety itself (which is almost as high a risk factor for bad outcomes from Covid as diabetes).  

I have been an applied advocate for gay and lesbian teens, learning, physically, and cognitively disabled students, and first generation, low-SES, and minority learners nearly my entire life.   Real gains have been made with these students through real courage, and really fighting for them.  I want to fight for them in one more way, to appeal to you in the strongest and gentlest ways I know how, to allow choice regarding masks this upcoming school year.  Many of these students have been made faceless by how society treats them and by how people avoid their unique struggles.  Requiring masks reinforces this with a physical facelessness. 

Fortunately, science is completely on the side of compassionate mask choice.  Even N-95 masks will not work when you are forced to take them off to eat, and the scientific efficacy of (especially cloth) masks is now zero with hyper-transmissible variants like BA 5. A recent wave swept through [this Midwestern city] in vaccinated and unvaccinated alike, and the results were tantamount to those one would expect with a flu wave (maybe even less). This follows the observed course for most viruses—greater transmissibility and lower virulence (harm).

In teaming with other parents in Placer County, California to educate around the emerging science, changes to Covid management, and concern for young people’s mental and social health, we joined science, care, and inclusive principles to free our learning community of the REQUIREMENT of masks even in the midst of a reasonably-sized surge. (Some students and staff chose to continue wearing masks, and they did so without stigma.)  There was not a single adverse consequence of note from this policy change.  

Again, I fully support individual decisions to wear masks on the part of students and staff, just as I support personal decisions to vaccinate.  I simply believe we should also support those who do not choose these options.  In my opinion, a truly diverse community requires this tolerance, respect, and care.

I will close by saying what I said to the school board in Placer County:  “Listen to your hearts.”  Feel deeply your own best intuitions about how to support these growing and learning beings.  If you are worried about the displeasure of parents who have not taken the time to contemplate the larger and deeper needs of the school or other kids, I am willing to speak directly to these parents, faculty, and staff to assure everyone, backed by the latest science, that there is no decreased physical risk provided by masks, but that there are measurable educational, social, and developmental consequences for mandating them.

I appeal:  Please let parents, faculty, staff, and the students themselves choose whether to wear a mask or not. 

Respectfully,

Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D.

Bachelor of Science, Honors Biology, The Ohio State University

Ph.D., Philosophy and Psychology of Education, [Syracuse University]