How COVID-19 School Guidelines Are Harming Kids
Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola
Fact Checked
June 12, 2021
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- It became clear early on that children and teens are at very low risk from COVID-19, with a 99.997% survival
- Masking, social distancing and virtual schooling persisted nonetheless, even as experts sounded the alarm about their probable implications, including physical, psychological and behavioral adverse effects
- Speaking at the Advanced Medicine Conference May 30, 2021, Leila Centner, chief executive officer and co-founder of Centner Academy in Miami, Florida, detailed many of the risks posed to children by COVID-19 school guidelines, along with the inconsistencies and lack of research behind their use
- A number of states have now banned mask mandates in schools, often as the result of public outcry; Stand for Health Freedom has a form you can use to ask your governor and department of education to lift harmful COVID-19 guidelines in your child’s school so students can return to normal, healthy learning environments
Children may end up being among the greatest casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic — not because of the virus but due to the restrictions placed upon them over the last year, which have interrupted mental, social and emotional development in unprecedented ways. It became clear early on that children and teens are at very low risk from COVID-19, with a 99.997% survival.1
Masking, social distancing and virtual schooling persisted nonetheless, even as experts sounded the alarm about their probable implications, including physical, psychological and behavioral adverse effects.2
Speaking at the Advanced Medicine Conference May 30, 2021, Leila Centner, chief executive officer and co-founder of Centner Academy in Miami, Florida, detailed many of the risks posed to children by COVID-19 school guidelines, along with the inconsistencies and lack of research behind their use.3 …
CDC COVID Guidelines May Be Harming Children
In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s operational strategy for K-to-12 schools continues to recommend the “consistent use of prevention strategies, including universal and correct use of masks and physical distancing.”5
Any intervention, including mask usage, which may cause adverse effects, must have benefits that outweigh the risks, but no research has been done to ensure that universal masking of children is safe or effective. …
At the University of Witten/Herdecke in Germany, an online registry was set up where parents, doctors, pedagogues and others can enter their observations about mask wearing in children. Using data on 25,930 children,6 with an average mask wearing time of 270 minutes per day, 24 health issues were reported.7 A majority of parents (68%) reported impairments in their children due to wearing a mask. They recorded symptoms that:8
“… included irritability (60%), headache (53%), difficulty concentrating (50%), less happiness (49%), reluctance to go to school/kindergarten (44%), malaise (42%), impaired learning (38%) and drowsiness or fatigue (37%).”
They also found 29.7% reported feeling short of breath, 26.4% being dizzy and 17.9% were unwilling to move or play.9 Hundreds more experienced “accelerated respiration, tightness in chest, weakness and short-term impairment of consciousness.” The researchers concluded:10
“The frequency of the registry’s use and the spectrum of symptoms registryed indicate the importance of the topic and call for representative surveys, randomized controlled trials with various masks and a renewed risk-benefit assessment for the vulnerable group of children.”
Masks Cause Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Headaches and More
Centner’s presentation featured Dr. Jim Meehan, an ophthalmologist and preventive medicine specialist who has performed more than 10,000 surgical procedures and is also a former editor of the medical journal Ocular Immunology and Inflammation. He has conducted an evidence-based scientific analysis on masks, which shows that not only should healthy people not be wearing masks but they could be harmed as a result.11
In the video, Meehan warned universal masking of children is experimental and the safety hasn’t been proven. Further, he says the official change in guidelines from first telling people to avoid mask-wearing to later mandating it in many places wasn’t the result of “new science” but rather was the result of lobbying.
In his practice, Meehan said he’s seen horrendous harm as a result, with dozens of children facing health problems including:12
| Anxiety | Panic attacks | Struggling to breathe |
| Facial rashes | Infections | Dental problems |
| Oral ulcers | Cavities | Throat abscesses |
Meehan previously compiled 17 ways that masks can cause harm, which include:13
| Medical masks adversely affect respiratory physiology and function | Medical masks lower oxygen levels in the blood |
| Medical masks raise carbon dioxide levels in the blood | SAR-CoV-2 has a “furin cleavage” site that makes it more pathogenic, and the virus enters cells more easily when arterial oxygen levels decline, which means wearing a mask could increase COVID-19 severity |
| Medical masks trap exhaled virus in the mouth/mask, increasing viral/infectious load and increasing disease severity | SARS-CoV-2 becomes more dangerous when blood oxygen levels decline |
| The furin cleavage site of SARS-CoV-2 increases cellular invasion, especially during low blood oxygen levels | Cloth masks may increase the risk of contracting COVID-19 and other respiratory infections |
| Wearing a face mask may give a false sense of security | Masks compromise communications and reduce social distancing |
| Untrained and inappropriate management of face masks is common | Masks worn imperfectly are dangerous |
| Masks collect and colonize viruses, bacteria and mold | Wearing a face mask makes the exhaled air go into the eyes |
| Contact tracing studies show that asymptomatic carrier transmission is very rare | Face masks and stay at home orders prevent the development of herd immunity |
| Face masks are dangerous and contraindicated for a large number of people with pre-existing medical conditions and disabilities |
Centner also featured Dr. Lawrence Palevsky, a New York pediatrician, who warned that masks could be harming children’s brain development. By promoting fear, stress, panic and anxiety, it keeps children in the “fight or flight response” driven by the brain. This influences the capacity of development and higher functions of the brain.14
Children’s Mental Health Is Suffering
Rates of suicide in youth increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 compared to 2019. …
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