Masking zealotry is making a resurgence once again.

Watch for another push for enforcing a return to masking this winter.

More and more it feels almost like we are moving closer to the same narratives that we were dealing with in 2020.

As childhood infections are rampaging and fears of a looming “tripledemic” saturate media headlines many people are now calling for renewed masking.

For instance, Canada seems to be thinking that the solution for the failed lockdown/isolation and masking policies is to bring back masking once again.

It’s as if we haven’t learned anything the past few years. It’s like the policies that forced kids to isolate and stay away from other children, leaving them more vulnerable to infections due to the lack of building a proper immunity, are now being brought back once again to somehow protect children this time around.

Clearly we are dealing with the ramifications of such policies, and rather than removing the bandage and dealing with the wound that was failed policies we are putting the bandage (or metaphorical mask) back on and acting as if this is the proper way of dealing with the situation.

Children need to get sick. They need to build up an immune system and not be locked away. Children should not be beholden to the paranoia of adults who can’t seem to be bothered to act like actual adults.

Today an article was also published pushing for masking mandates to be brought back to Toronto, Canada.

From yahoo.

Doesn’t this language sound eerily familiar…

This article was apparently written and signed off by members of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario. It sounds like a union which may be leveraging their status to enforce the return of these policies.

Now, take a look at the first paragraph:

To confront the dangerous triple threat of COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza currently putting children's lives at risk – particularly those aged four and younger – the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO) calls on the Ontario government to immediately mandate masks rather than merely recommend them. A mask mandate will reduce illness and increase awareness of the seriousness of the current hospital crisis. It will also reduce community spread of the three viruses ahead of winter, when the situation will become even more dire.

Remember the talk about the crushing pressure on the medical community from early 2020?

Apparently Ontario is dealing with a nursing shortage, and I can’t help but wonder why…

Hilariously, the article even references the repeat infection study which I have criticized:

RNAO warns Ontarians to remain extremely careful about repeated infections with COVID. New research dispels the widely held view that second and third infections with COVID are milder since the body has already been exposed to the virus. On the contrary, accumulating new evidence suggests that subsequent infections may have compounding effects, becoming ever more dangerous and potentially linked to Long COVID. That's why masking and maintaining very high levels of vaccination with COVID boosters remain crucial.

Rather, I have stated that the higher risk of PASC and death in those who have had repeat infections may stem from the fact that those who had repeat infections were more unhealthy and had more comorbidities:

More COVID infections, more death?

It’s ridiculous that both masking AND vaccination and being pushed for the current spikes in infection, even though we know full-well that most masks are not effective and that the vaccines for both flu and COVID do not stop transmission.

So again, how are these methods intended to prevent something which clearly were not effective previously? Are we supposed to assume that now things work?

When I released my post on the recent Boston school district mask study I commented that these studies are being used as a front to justify policies and drive decision making:

The NEJM wants to bring back masking school children

Note the language in this article from Time which is using this study to say that masking works (emphasis mine):

Broadly, there are some who will quickly dismiss the new study’s findings, arguing that masks don’t work to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The evidence is clear on this point. Masks can block and filter the aerosols that carry SARS-CoV-2, and better masks work better; this study supports previous evidence that mask policies in communities prevent transmission, providing data specifically on policies in the school setting. While there are challenges for schools, including mask compliance, the lack of N95s designed for young kids, and necessary mask removal at lunchtime, there are many high-quality masks (such as KF94 or KN95) that work well for kids and are extremely comfortable. The study by Cowger and colleagues does not have information on the types of masks worn across the Boston area, but multiple school districts communicated about the importance of higher-quality masks to combat more transmissible variants, and made these masks freely available to students.

So, what should we do with the new information provided by this study? As a school nurse, an environmental health researcher, and an emergency medicine physician, we find this information compelling and important to act on. Right now, pediatric practices and hospitals are overrun with COVID-19, RSV, flu, and many other respiratory viruses, and the winter and holiday season (when things typically get much worse) is just around the corner. Student and staff absenteeism are on the rise early in this school year, the fourth academic year impacted by COVID, but the first one with no protective measures employed on a consistent basis. The off-ramps were clear once universal masking ended; it’s the on-ramps that are not accessible or equitable.

[…]

The new study by Cowger and colleagues reinforces that we have the tools to protect both our students’ health and their learning. Now is the time to actually use them, but are the decision-makers in schools and in local, state, and federal government paying attention?

So it’s clear that the author of this piece wants government intervention to enforce masking once again, levying the Boston study as justification even given the study’s flaws.

This all raises a critical aspect to the COVID narrative:

Remember that scientists and policymakers require buy-in from the public.

I have generally lamented the fact that there’s a precarious relationship with scientists and the studies they produce, and how the public interprets or pushes for science that they want.

It’s clear that this method is being deployed here, with many news outlets using these heavily flawed studies to influence public sentiment and bring back masking.

They need people to buy into the paranoia and become subservient to their whims.

We’re dealing once again with the same issues that plagued us two years prior, and yet now it’s being done as if 2020 never occurred.

But we know better than to fall for this tactics. We are more informed and more critical of these actions that are being deployed.

The best way to fight these types of tactics is to be informed and remember why all of these policies failed in the first place.

In the coming weeks we are likely to see more calls for masking to return. Make sure not to buy into their paranoia.

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