New Analysis: Mask-Mandated Districts Had More School Disruptions - American Commitment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 31, 2022

Washington, D.C.—A significant new analysis byAmerican CommitmentpresidentPhil Kerpen,along withEmily Burns and Josh Stevenson,definitively concludes that masks failed to keep kids in school. In fact, contrary to the claims of public health officials, masked school districts experiencedbothhigher rates of Covid infection and disruption of learning.

“This is not a model or a theory. This is what actually happened. In January and February of this year, mask-mandated school districts had far more school closures than mask-optional. Period,” Kerpen said. “The idea that masking would keep kids in school is now empirically disproven.”

The new analysis finds:
“One of the reasons we were told masks were essential for school kids this year was that masks would reduce the likelihood of school closures, by reducing disease incidence. Unfortunately, like so much the CDC has promised, the opposite turns out to be true….Children in masked districts experienced, on average, 4-times the number of disrupted learning days as those in mask-optional districts (Figure 1).The same districts also had 2.5 times higher case rates during the same period as we demonstrated in analysis published on March 9th, 2022.”
The report continues:
“This result is as important as it was expected. The CDC promised that whatever potential (and willfully ignored) harms might come to children from two full years of forced masking, they must be risked, due to the added safety and schooling that masking would ensure. Neither claim ended up being true. As we demonstrated in our analysis of March 9th, during the January peak of the omicron wave, masked districts had 2.5-fold higher case rates than un-masked districts. Yet, during the same period, as we saw in Figure 1 above, those same schools experienced more than 4-fold higher rates of school disruptions—significantly higher rates of disruption even than their increases in case rates.”
The entire analysis can be viewed online at:
https://emilyburns.substack.com/p/no-masks-dont-help-keep-kids-in-school?s=r

American Commitmentis dedicated to restoring and protecting our nation’s commitment to free markets, economic growth, Constitutionally-limited government, property rights, and individual freedom. American Commitment engages in critical public policy fights over the size and intrusiveness of government through direct advocacy, strategic policy analysis, and grassroots mobilization.Visit us online atwww.AmericanCommitment.org

###

Photo Credit: TheBellaTwins1445