School

https://www.thehealthyamerican.org/schools

Ep. 106: Are Children the Primary Spreaders of Covid? Source links:
Children are not COVID-19 super spreaders: time to go back to school

Evidence summary of potential for children to contribute to transmission of SARS-CoV-2

Children unlikely to be the main drivers of the Covid-19 pandemic

Not sure if this has been posted yet but it's a really good, grounded, thorough overview of CV-19 factors by a MD. Dr Kelly Victory, MD - Gives an overview of CV: https://youtu.be/uIGdv-TybUk

Dear School Board Members,

I will start with anecdotal info followed by perspectives for consideration and closing factual information complete with links.

Since mask wearing has become a requirement for me to obtain food, my formally pleasant experience of going to the grocery store has become a confusing experience. I struggle with communication. Although I think I hear well, I miss a lot in conversation because I cannot see lips move. As a teacher of somatics, I’m more highly aware than the average person of movement and the body and even with that knowledge, I didn’t realize until recently how much I rely on reading lips, similar to hearing-impaired seniors. I can tell you that without facial expressions, or being able to see the mouth and lips move, we face an incomprehensible peril. This is not an extreme statement. This is a moderate statement of basic logic related to the design of our human form. A masked face is a face with only a fraction of expression. A person wearing a facial covering is a person whose freedom of speech is limited. While the limitation is partial, it is still enough that it encroaches upon our First Amendment right.

We can realistically acknowledge that children with auditory sensitivities, or English Language Learners would be greatly impaired from success. But also the socially intelligent children who often have an important role of unconsciously or subconsciously acting as diplomats and meditators, counselors and negotiators, would be disempowered from their gift to create harmony among their peers or as leaders in school and/or work or extra-curricular environments.

A culture of masks is disruptful to the culture we aspire toward- a culture of goodwill and one that preserves the ideals of being able to live our hopes and dreams. A culture of masks is unfair to anyone who needs to breathe, which is obviously everyone. As a breathing instructor, not only is breathing essential to living, but also to coping. We must embrace the importance of our physical form. We must recognize the design of our bodies, complete with nostrils and mouth and how this wonderful form cannot and should not be expected to function normally with a man-made implement, especially one that has not been proven effective in preventing germs from passing. ]]

I am writing to strongly encourage the district to implement a normal setting for education and to discount the state "Guidance" related to schools, for example, wearing of masks by students, teachers and administrators, or the six-feet separation, etc.

Note: Jun 11, 2020: Masks are no longer mandatory in Orange County*�as announced by OC Board of Supervisors Chair Michelle Steel.

Please watch this video and refer to the links and resources on this page:

https://www.thehealthyamerican.org/schools

Here are the reasons why this school district should open normally this Fall, with no masks, nor forced distancing, no plexiglass dividers, etc:

1. These are guidelines only and not enforceable by law. There is no legal statute that enforces these guidelines.

2. "Guidance" means recommended actions. There are no legal penalties for not following the guidelines.

3. Each district and school has the authority to implement the guidelines according to their own needs: "Implementation of this guidance should be tailored for each setting... including the needs of students and families." "School leaders should engage families… and labor partners... to formulate and implement plans."

4. The guidelines include a link to CAL/OSHA regulations, which state: "Cloth face covers are not protective equipment and do not protect the person wearing a cover against COVD-19."

See page 2: https://dir.ca.gov/dosh/coronavirus/COVID-19-Infection-Prevention-in-Logistics.pdf

1. The guidelines also include a link to the CDC, which offers no reputable medical or scientific evidence that supports the use of masks outside of a medical setting.�See video here: https://youtu.be/OUUOq1ksiQQ

2. The California Board of Health states that "wearing masks could INCREASE RISK OF INFECTION"

3. The New England Journal of Medicine states that, "Outside of a medical setting, the wearing of masks provides little, if any, protection against the transmission of disease."

4. There are countless documented physical, mental and emotional harms associated with wearing masks.

5. There is no special liability associated with a person catching a communicable disease at a workplace. In fact, it is the opposite: it is much harder to prove because you (a) have to prove that a person KNEW he was infected and (b) That person had to WILLFULLY intend to infect another person. (see references, point 11: Infectious diseases)

6. Your workplace is MORE likely to be sued because of the health harms of wearing a mask by both the teachers and the students, including: (a) reduction in oxygen (must have 19.5% oxygen in the atmosphere according to OSHA regulations; masking can result in 18.5% or below, putting the wearer at "Immediate Danger to Life and Health", with "irreversible adverse effects" --- according to OSHA regulations; (b) students or teacher passing out due to carbon dioxide toxicity. and possibly falling, hitting their head and dying.

7. Instructional impediments to learning: face masks are confusing and divisive; they impede normal social interaction; language is garbled; a barrier between student and teacher is created.

8. There is no sound, scientific or medical evidence supporting "social distancing" or any other onerous recommendations (these are not laws, nor are they enforceable by law) such as no sharing of instruction materials or games, etc. There is ZERO science between having students sit in desks 6 feet apart. It is the opposite: the division is harmful on a physical, psychological, emotional and instructional level.

9. Your school is a risk for being sued for discrimination on religious grounds, because mask wearing may violate a person's individual religious beliefs.

10. If students are kept from going to school because of a mask-wearing requirement, your school may LOSE FUNDING based on attendance.

11. If a parent would like their child to wear a mask, that is a personal choice. There are no legal grounds for a parent to require that the entire school or student population be required to wear a mask.

12. Requiring teachers, administrators or students to wear masks is a violation of OSHA regulations regarding a safe and healthy workplace, because of the documented health harms associated with wearing a mask outside of health care settings.

More data and links are at www.thehealthyamerican.org, along with additional well-researched instructional videos.

Please return a message to me that we will not be following a new culture order of conforming to a socialistic style not unlike Communist China. Please return a message to me that the educational system, one that fosters normal human functions, will still be available to my family.

Sincerely,

REFERENCES:

(1) State Guidance for Schools and School-Based Setting

https://covid19.ca.gov/pdf/guidance-schools.pdf

(2) California Department of Public Health states. "There is limited evidence to suggest that the use of cloth face coverings by the publc during a pandemic could help reduce disease transmission." "Face coverings may INCREASE RISK." https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Face-Coverings-Guidance.aspx

(2) CAL/OSHA statement that "cloth face covers do not protect against COVID-19." https://dir.ca.gov/dosh/coronavirus/COVID-19-Infection-Prevention-in-Logistics.pdf

(3) CAL/OSHA "Oxygen deficient atmosphere means an atmosphere with an oxygen content below 19.5% by volume." https://www.dir.ca.gov/title8/5144.html

(4) CDC has no evidence supporting the wearing of cloth face coverings https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html

(5) Video showing no evidence from CDC references regarding masks: https://tinyurl.com/ycoeckfv

(6) New England Journal of Medicine: "We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection." https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372

(7) Psychological harms of mask-wearing: Columbia University: "Many young children burst into tears or recoil when someone wearing a mask approaches. By putting on masks, we take away information that makes it especially difficult for children to recognize others and read emotional signals, which is unsettling and disconcerting." https://bit.ly/2XDaASx

(8) Physical harms of mask-wearing: "Face Masks Pose Serious Risk to the Healthy" https://www.technocracy.news/blaylock-face-masks-pose-serious-risks-to-the-healthy/

(9) "Face coverings present a possible choking or strangulation hazard to your child" https://bit.ly/3cEX4SC

(10) Hand sanitizers pose risk to children: "The American Academy of Pediatrics urges parents to keep hand sanitizers out of children’s reach." https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/05/20/parentplus052020 (12) California

(11) California Health and Safety Code Section 120290 -- Exposure to an Infectious Disease in California. The defendant must (a) know they are afflicted with an infectious disease and (b) the defendant acts with SPECIFIC INTENT to transmit that disease to another person http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=HSC§ionNum=120290

"Nothing less than miracles."

The attack on childhood seen in the Covid policies regards schools and social distancing is the perfect example of a tendency active for thirty or forty years. Play was to be regulated, in the name of safety. Of risk management. Life was modeled on economic logic. Adorno was later in life even more skeptical of overcoming the impasse of critical thinking and discernment set against the loss of instinctual inner life. Any attempt at a more human existence under Capitalism was a false reconciliation with an unreconcilable world.
What I see today in the public displays of mask wearing is a submission to both authority, but also a submission and acceptance of the barren inner life of Capitalism. Additionally, it is a regression to something nearly exactly like witch burning and belief in the evil eye.
“…it was not until 1774 that parliamentary investigations into such improper confinements resulted in the Madhouses Act, which required these businesses to become licensed and inspected by the Royal College of Physicians. A strict eye needed to be kept on “gaolers of the mind, for if they do not find a patient mad, their “oppressive tyranny makes him so.”
George Makari (Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind)

http://john-steppling.com/2020/07/the-cunning-of-covid/

“The Y says that during the lockdowns it cared for up to 40,000 children between the ages of 1 and 14 at 1,100 separate sites, often in partnership with local and state governments. And in New York City, the pandemic's national epicenter in March and April, the city's Department of Education reports that it cared for more than 10,000 children at 170 sites.”
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"There are almost no recorded cases of child-to-adult transmission of COVID-19," says Elliot Haspel, an education policy expert and child care advocate who wrote an op-ed arguing for reopening full-time child care and schools as soon as possible. "It's not zero risk, [but] we're acting with a March 2020 understanding of COVID-19 and kids, and not with a June 2020 understanding of COVID-19 and kids."

8-14-2020