The scientist made perhaps her biggest splash Wednesday with an Atlantic essay questioning the CDC's purported evidence for COVID-19 mask mandates in schools, including a North Carolina study promoted by the National Institutes of Health, which oversees NIAID. While the NIH's safe school reopening guide called masks "Very effective at slowing the spread," Smelkinson called the North Carolina study and others weak because they didn't isolate the impact of masks and had no control group.
Mask mandates in schools are neither "Based on robust evidence" nor "Balanced against potential harms." Tweet URL An Atlantic reader wouldn't know the scientist's affiliation with NIAID or NIH, however.
In response, the Virginia-based "Mask Off Monday" campaign called on parents to send their children to school maskless on Jan. 24.
In New York Half Hollow Hills School District teacher Phil Iconis went viral for a TikTok video promising to "Throw a child at you" if anyone at school questions his decision to wear a mask, assuming the district goes mask-optional.
Half Hollow Hills Central School District told Just the News that the teacher, whom it didn't name, had been "Reassigned pending the district's investigation into the matter." Public Relations Director Charles Parker said employees' personal social media "Do not reflect the District's opinions, beliefs or values." By contrast, Smelkinson's writing has been much less heated and even evolved along with the pandemic.
The FDA has not approved N95s for children, and Chinese-made KN95s require a "Very tight seal" that is "Unrealistic" in schools, Smelkinson worte.
"Early-pandemic recommendations to mask at school, soon followed by mandates, were laid down in the absence of data," she wrote with public health professor Leslie Bienan and emergency medicine doctor Jeanne Noble.
Friday, January 28, 2022
Infectious disease expert at Fauci's NIAID undercuts the boss by challenging school mask mandates
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