Dr. Nicole Saphier Wrecks NYC Mayor Adams with Real Science on Masking Toddlers: 'He Should Be Removed from Office'
The doctor pointed out a new masking study that blows a massive hole in the childhood masking argument.
Dr. Nicole Saphier is taking New York City Mayor Eric Adams to task over his stubborn, unscientific insistence that toddlers in daycares and in pre-K schools around the city remain masked — even as adults like himself remain maskless.
The New York City area physician excoriated Adams by pointing to the latest actual science on child-masking and argued that he should be "removed from office."
"It’s important to remember that the World Health Organization has never recommended masking children 2 to 5 years of age," Dr. Saphier said. "In fact, they only recommend selective masking in children 6 to 12 years of age."
"But again, CDC, American Academy of Pediatrics continues to say everyone masked two and up," she continued. "But, thankfully, Europe continues to come out as the heroes putting forth the data on children and masking. We had the Spanish study which showed 5-year-olds who did not wear masks had no change in transmission rates when it came to 6-year-olds who were wearing masks. All they showed, the older you are, the more likely you are to spread the virus, which we’ve been saying all along."
The Spanish study that Dr. Saphier references above is quite clear: There is no discernible difference between mask-mandate and mask-optional schools when it comes to Covid transmission. The study's overview was summarized in a Tablet article "The Cult of Masked Schoolchildren," published in January.
"The United States is uniquely aggressive in masking young kids," Dr. Vinay Prasad writes in Tablet. "Contrary to scientific evidence, the Centers for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics advise that children as young as 2 should wear masks. Europe has always been more relaxed on this issue, and the World Health Organization advises against masks for kids under 6 and only selectively for kids under 11."
"Data from Spain on masking kids is sobering," he continued. "The figure below shows the R value—a measure of how fast the virus spreads—by age. Spain mandated masks at a specific age cutoff. If masks have a visible effect, we should see a step down in the graph at the age kids start to wear them (i.e., the spread should drop at the age masking begins). But as you can see, there is only a slow, deliberate, upward trend with no steps down. Based on the evidence only, it would be impossible to guess which age groups are wearing masks and which are not."
Image credit: Tablet
"This simply means that masking was not associated with a large effect in slowing spread," the article states, noting that kids start wearing masks in the study at age 6.
The new Finnish study Dr. Saphier cites appears to be equally damaging to claims that masks make a significant impact on childhood Covid transmission. The pre-print study was recently noted by Dr. Vinay Prasad and Dr. Marty Makary.
"New Finnish study found that school mask mandates did not impact transmission," Dr. Makary, a Johns Hopkins professor, points out. "Well-done analysis comparing schools that adopted mask mandates to those that didn’t. Nice explanation of how masking toddlers today is not following the science," he added, referring to a video explanation by Prasad. "It’s anti [science]."
"New Preprint from Finland leverages a natural mask mandate experiment to show that masking 10-12 year olds in school.... (spoiler alert)... doesn't work," Dr. Prasad summarized.
It has long been known to public health officials that the data supporting mask efficacy is extremely weak — and even weaker when it comes to masking children.
In November 2020, a study in the academic journal Annals of Internal Medicine cast more doubt on "policies that force healthy individuals to wear face coverings in hopes of limiting the spread of COVID-19," the Foundation for Economic Education reported.
"The study is perhaps the best scientific evidence to date on the efficacy of masks," FEE added.
The study was so damaging to the masking political cause that it forced the New York Times to publish a reactionary piece whose headline has to be seen to be believed.
“Researchers in Denmark reported on Wednesday that surgical masks did not protect the wearers against infection with the coronavirus in a large randomized clinical trial,” the New York Times reported.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been caught lying repeatedly about the efficacy of childhood masking. The World Health Organization does not recommend masks for children under age 6. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control recommends against the use of masks for any children in primary school.
As OSHA has stated, neither cloth masks nor surgical masks are designed to protect wearers from airborne pathogens, particularly respiratory viruses. The confidence intervals for the efficacy of cloth masks and surgical masks to slow the spread of respiratory viruses are poor. N95 masks fare only slightly better.
Data compiled by John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times, based on research from Marc Bevand, show that Covid is now less lethal than the seasonal flu to young people.
As if that weren't enough to end the childhood-masking obsession, there is also data from the U.K's Office of National Statistics that supports the seemingly counter-intuitive conclusion that childhood masking increases transmission.
ONS data showed children who “never” or “sometimes” wear masks at work or school were less likely to test positive for Covid compared to those who “always” wear them. It’s no wonder the U.K. predominately did not force children to mask at school.
In sum, children are not at statistical risk from Covid-19. Full stop. The survival rate of healthy children is on the order of 99.9995% (the infection survival rate overall is at least 99.995%). Prior to milder Omicron, Covid deaths were one percent of annual deaths for those under age 18.
The actual science has not stopped New York City Mayor Eric Adams from brazenly insisting that toddler masks stay, despite a judge slapping his order down (stayed on appeal), while pointing to a vague increase in "case" rates that nonetheless point to only a "low" risk overall.
Furious parents have lit a fire under Adams to halt his barbaric order, however, by protesting outside of City Hall last Friday with inflatable babies and angry signs. One New York City mother was even fired from her job at the Law Department for speaking "truth to power" against Adams over his mandate at a press conference.
Dr. Nicole Saphier argues that the scientific studies she references lead to the conclusion that Mayor Adams should be "removed from his job" for his gross negligence for children's well-being.
"This tell us that here is no magic number when it comes to an age a child can or cannot transmit the virus, but that there is no strong evidence to show school mask mandates of children wearing masks actually has any effect on transmission," she said. "Children should not be masked and the New York City mayor who is continuing to mask toddlers–it is upsetting and negligent and he should be removed from office at this point because he’s making these points without any data to back it up. It will only cause harm."
If only this mattered to the hysterical, scientifically illiterate Covid fanatics who continue to support inhumane policies like child-masking.
The teachers union own the Dems. The Dems do what they say. Adams is a weak-willed tool who takes his marching orders from them and the Dem overlords including those that go to sporting events unmasked. He is a royal POS, as bad as DeCommieO.
Here’s an interesting task... look up which organization provides the greatest percentage of funding to the AAP. (Hint, I’m betting - based on what I found the last time I looked - the first 2 letters of the donor are Pf). AAP is captured by Pharma bucks, just like the CDC, peer reviewed journals, and medical researchers at Academic Medical Centers. What would parents do to get their children out of masks? Give them a shot?