“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” - Nobel Laureate economist, Milton Friedman

This is a citizen petition to change Oregon’s Mask Mandate to recommended and remove the mask mandate for children in schools and in youth sports.  We, the people, were told that we should wear masks to “slow the spread” back in April of 2020. At that time, it was reasonable for us, the people, to heed that instruction since no one knew much about the COVID-19 virus, its severity, or how it spread. It has now been over a year and there is evidence, science, data, and other states' results we can look to and re-evaluate these measures. Aren’t the people, especially the kids, worth that much?

The time has come for our representative government officials and agencies to do the right thing and remove the mask mandate in Oregon, especially for children and schools. For more than a year, kids suffered from irrational, unscientific and downright superstitious policies inflicted upon them by adults — and there is no end in sight. Stop putting kids last.

We now know that there is a 99% survival rate and that kids are the least susceptible to its effects. The following article from AIER, "Masking Children: Tragic, Unscientific, and Damaging", explains it this way, "Data now suggests (even though still nascent) that children not only have extremely low risk as mentioned above but also that they naturally have the capability of evading the SARS-CoV-2 virus due to the lack of the ACE-2 receptors in their nostrils. It escapes us as to why this deceit continues to be served to the public and has not been stopped forthwith."

And Psychology Today states in their article Will Wearing Masks Affect Children’s Emotional Development?, "This really is not an issue of the ‘science’ as kids do not spread the virus readily to kids, to adults, to teachers, or to the home. They do not get severely ill or die from this. Moreover, teachers are at very low risk of severe illness or death and the school setting remains one of the safest, lowest risk environments."  

Not only are children not at a high risk or "super spreaders" as previously claimed, the damage inflicted on them for requiring mask-wearing for 6-8 hours a day every day long-term is a fair greater risk, unknown effects, than Covid-19. Children as young as 5 and up are wearing these masks not only while socially distanced, sitting alone at their desk, but as they run around, exercising, OUTDOORS! Where is the science in this? This requirement on children is abusive, mentally and physically damaging.  Here from an article from the National Institute of Health, Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis shares this: "Wearing facemasks has been demonstrated to have substantial adverse physiological and psychological effects. These include hypoxia, hypercapnia, shortness of breath, increased acidity and toxicity, activation of fear and stress response, rise in stress hormones, immunosuppression, fatigue, headaches, decline in cognitive performance, predisposition for viral and infectious illnesses, chronic stress, anxiety and depression. Long-term consequences of wearing facemask can cause health deterioration, developing and progression of chronic diseases and premature death."

In another article from AIER, Medical Journal Warns About Masks’ Potentially Devastating Consequences,  "In addition to hypoxia and hypercapnia, breathing through facemask residues bacterial and germs components on the inner and outside layer of the facemask. These toxic components are repeatedly rebreathed back into the body, causing self-contamination. Breathing through facemasks also increases temperature and humidity in the space between the mouth and the mask, resulting in a release of toxic particles from the mask’s materials. A systematic literature review estimated that aerosol contamination levels of facemasks including 13 to 202,549 different viruses. Rebreathing contaminated air with high bacterial and toxic particle concentrations along with low O2 and high CO2 levels continuously challenge the body homeostasis, causing self-toxicity and immunosuppression."

This is just a small sample of what is coming out now regarding mandating masks for long periods of time on not just children but all of us. 

Conclusion and Plea: After reviewing the research, reviewing other state's measures, you should see the science is clear and thus the question becomes, what is the benefit of masks in general and especially for children? Is masking of children really more about seeming to be doing something even if it is ineffective or possibly harmful? If the possible harms outweigh the negligible and questionable benefit in such a low-risk group, then why must they wear masks indoors and outdoors at school? Masks in children with such near zero risk of transmission and illness from Covid is not necessary and illogical and irrational.

A blanket policy of masking is not only ineffective but can cause tremendous psychological harm and potentially long-term negative health consequences.  All we ask is that masks become optional, an individual choice, parent’s choice, business-owner choice. 

Psychology today states “masking children is as absurd, illogical, nonsensical, and potentially dangerous as trying to stop ‘every case of Covid’ or ‘stopping Covid at all costs.’ Masks are not needed for children based on near zero risk in children. The risk of dying from Covid-19 is “almost zero” for young people. The issue of masks in children is really a risk management question for parents and any decision-maker. The science is settled.” 

To close, Karol Markowicz of the NY Post says it best in his April 11, 2021 article Will COVID Hysterics Ever Let Our Children Live Normal Lives, "With the grown-ups ability to get vaccinated, it’s time to back off the kids. More than a year of their lives has been needlessly on pause. Enough. No more masks, no more distancing, no more pretending that this virus is harmful to children when it clearly isn’t. Open all the schools, full-time. Let the kids play sports, and let’s never again make the mistakes we made in the last year. Children will be feeling the repercussions of those mistakes for years. We disregarded science and let hysteria grip us. Take that mask off, son.”

Unmask Oregon. Unmask our Kids. Let Oregonians decide how to protect their health and their families - for we know what is best for US, not Salem. 

BTW - There are 24 states without mask mandates and counting.