NPR insists that student mask mandates have been proven effective, but the truth is more complicated.
Welcome back to “Forgotten Fact-Checks,” a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we explore the merits (or lack thereof) of progressives’ school masking obsession, remember the most well-done and important stories about the September attacks, and take our usual aim at various media misses.
Mask Madness
“The scientific research is conclusive: Widespread masking in schools significantly limits COVID transmission among students,” tweeted NPR while promoting its story “Yes, Gov. DeSantis, Studies Do Show Masks Curb Covid-19 In Schools.”
According to its author, the “still raging” political debate over whether masks should be required in schools ignores the “scientific consensus” — which purportedly holds that K–12 student mask mandates are invaluable.
To buttress this claim, the author cites a few studies suggesting that masks have been effective in mitigating spread of the virus while completely ignoring those that indicate the opposite.
The CDC’s own report from the 2020-2021 school year admitted that there was not a statistically significant difference in infection rates between schools that mandated masks for students and those that made usage optional. And importantly, this study was conducted before the mass distribution of the coronavirus vaccines, which remain effective — especially at preventing serious illness and death — even in the face of the Delta-variant surge.
Other countries’ experiences have also provided contrary data points to the overarching claim made by NPR. The United Kingdom, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy among other developed nations have rejected mandatory masking for students, and especially younger children, with results that do not suggest any kind of increased transmission as compared with the United States.
Even in Florida, the favorite boogeyman of mask-obsessives, evidence suggests that student mask mandates have little impact. Districts without mask mandates for students and staff may have experienced slightly higher infection rates among staff, but even there, the numbers remained modest, and a number of confounding variables make it difficult to tell just how much of a role masking played. But the presence of student mask mandates did not significantly impact case rates among staff or students.
Of 17 studies cited by the CDC as evidence that student masking is effective, not one study looked at student mask use in isolation from other mitigation measures, or against a control, according to an analysis by New York Magazine. Some of the studies showed that no student masking correlated with low transmission.
On the margins, it may be true that a mask mandate can stop a few cases here and there. Yet mask mandates for students come at a significant cost to students’ learning outcomes, mental health, and social development — costs that many mandate proponents just outright ignore. Moreover, the trade-off just doesn’t seem worth it to some. Especially when you consider data collected by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which show that as of September 2, seven states have seen no child deaths related to COVID-19, and that of the 45 states that provided data to the AAP, “0.00 percent-0.03 percent of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death.”
If you still believe mandatory student masking to be worth the oft-ignored trade-offs, fair enough. But the cut-and-dried “science says masking works” argument is simplistic, so much so as to render it untruthful.
A Rare Round of Applause
It’s not often that the FFC team hands out non-derisive accolades, but it’s worth remembering and celebrating some of the best journalistic work done in the aftermath of the 9/11 — work that not only informed, but uplifted and inspired Americans at a time when they needed it most.
• There is no way to escape James Stewart’s February 2002 story “The Real Heroes Are Dead” with a dry eye. Susan Glasser and Rick Rescorla’s real-life love story and its abrupt, cruel end reminds us not only of the personal toll of that fateful day, but also of the beauty and hope we can find in each other. Somehow, Rescorla’s stunning story of heroism on the day of his death — he charged back up the stairs to get more people out of the World Trade Center after having evacuated his own company — is secondary to their story of devotion and belonging.
• For another story of human greatness amid human misery, this one told on screen, watch ESPN’s short on Welles Crowther — “The Man in the Red Bandana.” Crowther, a Wall Street trader and former lacrosse player at Boston College, spent his last hour on Earth running around the South Tower helping, treating, and leading. Crowther led a group down the stairs of the South Tower where they were escorted by firefighters to the street, but he kept going back up to retrieve more. Crowther was identifiable to the disparate groups he helped only by the red bandana — a gift from his grandfather — that he wore while jetting around the building.
• Every year, National Review republishes a note sent to William F. Buckley Jr. by the father of Tom Burnett — one of the leaders of the successful passenger revolt against the hijackers on United Flight 93 — as well as what his wife, Deena, remembers of their conversations while Burnett was still in the air. His last words to her were, “Don’t worry, we’re going to do something.”
Headline Fail of the Week
This week’s honor is to be shared by every media outlet that gushed over North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un after he apparently lost some weight and got a tan.
CBS News proclaimed that a “Thinner, more energetic Kim Jong Un steals the spotlight at North Korea parade,” while Bloomberg News writes that “Kim Jong Un is Trim, Tanned and Loving a Parade.” Meanwhile, the Associated Press asserted that a “thinner, energetic Kim stands out at North Korean parade” and CNN said the dictator “boasts a svelte new look.” Some social-media users were quick to point out that the headlines were so bad, they were reminiscent of a 2012 headline from the parody site The Onion which jokingly named the dictator that year’s “sexiest man alive.”
Media Misses
• Matt Yglesias commemorated the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks by wondering “why we overreacted so much to 3,000 dead on 9/11 and underreacted so much to 200x (and counting!) fatalities from Covid.” He doesn’t explain or justify the supposed unwarranted reactions to each, but it seems notable that while endemic disease has been an-ever present, though still concerning, threat to human life, a massive terrorist attack capable of snuffing out the lives of thousands in only an hour — with the threat of more on the horizon — is particularly horrifying and frightening.
• California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder, an African American and Republican, was attacked by a white woman wearing a gorilla mask who hurled an egg at him. Kyle Smith urges readers to “do a search for ‘Larry Elder’ and gorilla” on CNN, Washington Post, and New York Times websites. You may or may not be surprised to find no results related to the attempted assault.
• The media’s emphasis on demagoguing ivermectin — a potential treatment for those afflicted by COVID-19 — as “horse dewormer” took another hit last week with the release of a study concluding that it “can be an effective component of the mix of therapeutics deployed against this pandemic.” Vaccination remains the most effective way of avoiding infection and serious complications associated with COVID-19, but that shouldn’t stop researchers from exploring other avenues as well.