The letter, from the National Education Union (NEU), the NASUWT teaching union, Unite, Unison and GMB, claims that facemasks are an essential part of controlling the spread of covid-19 in schools.
Therefore, the unions claim, masks should continue to be worn in classrooms until at least June 21st.
However, data clearly shows that there has been no increase in infections since secondary schools reopened. The number of students testing positive for the virus has fallen by almost three-quarters since December, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
It was the same when students were tested last November. Secondary school pupils are very unlikely to come down with covid-19 and even less likely to transmit the virus. So what’s going on? Why are teaching unions demanding that the kids continue to wear facemasks?
Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence based medicine at Oxford University, is telling anyone who will listen that masks are effectively useless. In fact, he told Talk Radio last week that there is no evidence to support claims that masks reduce the transmission of viruses.
The unions claim that they are acting in the best interests of their members, the teachers. They say it’s their duty to fight for their members right to work in a safe environment.
But what about pupils rights? Who’s acting for them? Last year a Polish study revealed that 35 per cent of young adults experienced breathing difficulties while wearing facemasks. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/dth.13567
In Germany, a study found that facemasks have a negative effect on cardiopulmonary capacity and quality of life. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32632523/
How many parents know any of this? My guess is not many. The media never reports any of these studies. Don’t forget either, that Public Health England admitted last week, that it did not consider the negative health impacts of requiring children to wear face masks during lessons.
I’ll give it to you straight. Face coverings are dangerous. Forcing a child to wear a mask for up to eight hours a day is patently insane.