On Thursday, FNC host Tucker Carlson opened his broadcast questioning the lack of skepticism over mask mandates for children, done in the name of COVID-19 mitigation.
Carlson said given the impact of the mandate and other health policies, it begged the question of why people would trust health officials “ever again?”
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: For a full year, our children never saw one another’s faces. They didn’t see their teachers or their playmates. They were cut off. They were masked.
Masks were mandatory in schools and in most public places. Masks were the key to fighting the great global pandemic they told us again and again. Our public health authorities repeated that every day, so our children complied with it. They had no choice.
Very few of their parents questioned it. Adults who refused to wear mask in public were arrested for it, and that sent the clearest possible message. Shut up and do what you’re told. So people did.
And yet, bubbling beneath the surface questions remained, they didn’t go away, questions like: do masks really keep us safe from COVID-19? What is the downside of wearing masks? There’s got to be a downside, what is it?
And above all, why make children wear masks? What’s the point of that? We’ve known since the beginning that children aren’t at significant risk from the coronavirus nor are they meaningful vectors for spreading it. As “The Lancet” put it famously last fall, quote: “COVID-19 is a generally mild disease in children including infants.” And they’re right.
More kids die in pool drownings every year than have died from COVID so far. According to the latest Federal numbers, just 0.06 percent of all COVID fatalities in this country have been Americans aged 18 and under. So why mandate masks in schools?
Well, because the teachers’ unions demanded it, but beyond that, very few people asked. Instead, we were treated to a daily incessant drumbeat from the media, “Wear a mask. Wear a mask. Wear a mask.” All good people wear masks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The American Academy of Pediatrics just told CNN that children under the age of 12 should be the ones who wear masks. Do you agree?
DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Yes, especially if they’re indoors — indoor settings bringing them into stores or restaurants.
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Those kids obviously need to keep masks on when they’re in public places particularly when they’re indoors in public places.
DR. KAVITA PATEL, MSNBC MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Think about the indoors as a risky environment. In fact if you’re going indoors with children and they’re in a setting where they don’t have a knowledge of who is vaccinated and who is not, like other kids in camps, you should have them wear masks and I’ve found that kids are actually okay with wearing masks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “I’ve found that actually kids are okay with wearing masks,” says someone identifying as a physician. In the end, that was the level of science behind this policy. Kids are easy to command, they don’t know any better. You can make them do anything, and so we did.
They had no idea what they were talking about. There was no science behind what they said. They were just guessing and acting like it was settled, but it wasn’t. We know that now because the actual science is finally coming in.
Our juvenile mask policy, the one imposed on the entire country by the teachers’ unions and their puppets in Washington turns out to be a complete disaster. It was a human tragedy in fact, on a vast scale, and it is living testament to the recklessness of our leaders.
A new study on masks and children has been conducted by actual researchers in Germany and Poland and it was just published in “JAMA Pediatrics,” that’s the premier peer-reviewed pediatric medical journal in the world.
That study confirms that masking children wasn’t simply unnecessary and probably counterproductive, masking children was legitimately dangerous for the children. In this study, researchers asked 45 kids between the ages of 6 and 17 to wear face masks for a very short period of time in a controlled environment. Within just three minutes, they found that kids were inhaling carbon dioxide up to more than six times the acceptable limit for adults. The younger the children, the higher the concentration of carbon dioxide.
Almost immediately after putting a mask on a seven-year-old, that kid’s carbon dioxide level was 25,000 parts per million. How much is that? Well, it’s more than twice the level considered hazardous for adults in workplaces in this country.
For example, the Minnesota Department of Health posted this guideline, quote: “The average concentration of carbon dioxide over an eight-hour period should not exceed 10,000 parts per million.” That kid had 25,000 parts per million. And keep in mind the guidance is for an eight-hour period.
This study found far higher concentrations in just minutes after putting on a mask. Imagine a full school day and what it would do to a child? How about a full year of full school days? Think about that. It’s horrifying.
And the effects are measurable and have been for a while, but they’ve been ignored.
One large-scale survey of 25,000 children conducted in Germany found the overwhelming majority of kids reported adverse effects from wearing facemasks, some of them were serious. The effects included hypercapnia, that’s excessive CO2 in the bloodstream. That’s not surprising.
And then many of the symptoms included profound cognitive impairment, confusion, loss of consciousness, and asphyxiation. Now, these studies shouldn’t actually surprise us. Our public health officials knew from the beginning that forcing children to wear masks could be counterproductive. In fact, they knew that mask themselves can spread disease because it had been demonstrated by the largest study of the use of surgical masks back in 2015. It was conducted by researchers in Vietnam and it proved that.
Quote, “A trial we conducted In Vietnam of two-layered cotton cloth mask compared to medical mask showed a 13 times higher risk of infection in the cloth mask. The study suggest that cloth masks may increase the risk of infection.” Viral infection with diseases like COVID-19.
Now findings like this have been around for a while, again, they were known to anyone who cared to check and they may explain why Tony Fauci in his private e-mails admitted that masks are indeed useless. What we all knew and we don’t need a medical degree to know is that fresh air is good because people need oxygen, but that simple point was ignored completely by the people in charge and they continued to mandate mask for children.
What happened? Well, you know what happened. Kids began to collapse from lack of oxygen, but they didn’t care and they didn’t change their mandates. Watch the student from Oregon a few weeks ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Maggie Williams just seconds away from setting the summit school record in the 800-meter, a moment of glory overshadowed by this moment of concern. Williams finished in two minutes and eight seconds collapsing as she crossed the finish line.
MAGGIE WILLIAMS, SUMMIT HIGH SCHOOL TRACK ATHLETE: I felt like I just wasn’t being able to get a full breath and multiple times of that happening, not being able to get enough air, it just — I just felt super dizzy and then eventually passed out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Williams blames her lack of oxygen on the mask she is required to wear during competition.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “She blames the lack of oxygen on the mask.” Really? What else would it be? But the ghouls of the media didn’t care. That seems like a big story, they ignored it. Instead, they suggested new and inventive ways to cut off your kid’s oxygen supply.
Over at ABC News, one peppy little update celebrated airless personal cocoons for kids during band practice. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Wenatchee High School finding a socially distant solution to get the band back together. These so-called “pods” set up in the band and choir rooms. Individual students getting inside, zipping themselves in and then removing their masks to play their instruments or to sing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: In your little pod, may that tape live forever as testament to how insane this country went over the last year, slowly asphyxiating America’s children. That’s what it was, and had all the predictable effects.
Looking back, it is clear, with research in hand that this is a scandal. It didn’t happen naturally, it wasn’t a hurricane or a tornado. People did this. The people in charge did this. Have any of those people apologized for what they did? Have any been sanctioned? Has a single person lost a job over this? No, of course not.
The teachers’ unions still control our schools. Tony Fauci is still the highest-paid Federal employee in the land.
The only people who have suffered are the ones who dared to tell the truth while it was happening, and that’s always the case.
Back in April, we talked to a high school track coach from New Hampshire who was fired because he refused to make his athletes wear masks outside. Every student at his school and in schools across the country was required to wear a mask even when they were say, playing tennis, with no one around them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRADLEY KEYES, FORMER TRACK AND FIELD COACH, PEMBROKE ACADEMY: My goal is to get these mandates removed and it’s not just track and field, it’s tennis, it’s baseball, it’s every outdoor sport. Mask will be worn all times — practices and competitions. Tennis, wonderful example. Singles tennis, you go watch practices everyone is wearing masks. Competitions, they will be wearing masks even though they’re 30 to 60 feet apart on the courts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Wearing masks outside while playing singles tennis. Kids we now know we’re being hurt by this, cognitively hurt, not to mention emotionally hurt, not that anyone cares anymore. But in the end, the only person who was punished for this was the man who complained about it. No one in charge was or ever will be punished for what they did.
Are you surprised by that? We shouldn’t be surprised at this point. That is how rotten our ruling class has become. This is why Donald Trump was elected, despite his many faults, because on the very biggest questions, the ones that matter, questions of war, the economy, questions of public health, the people in charge create disaster after disaster after disaster and when in the end, they are caught, as they always will be caught, they admit no blame.
Instead, they blame the public. Here’s exhibit number 450,000.
This is Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot who has destroyed her city, explaining that anyone who complains about Chicago’s skyrocketing murder rate, about all the bodies piling up, anyone who mentions that is both a racist and a sexist.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: Mayor in recent months, there have been questions raised about your temperament and your reaction to criticism. A Tribune editorial used the term “irascible.” How much of this do you think might have to do with the fact that you’re a woman and specifically a black woman?
MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT (D-IL), CHICAGO: About 99 percent of it.
QUESTION: Expand on that.
LIGHTFOOT: Well, I mean look at my predecessors. Did people say that Rich Daley held, you know, tea sessions with people that he didn’t disagree on? Rahm Emanuel was a polite guy who was a uniter. No.
Women and people of color are always held to a different standard.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: People are fleeing Chicago in huge numbers because Lori Lightfoot has completely mismanaged the city. Dozens of people were shot last weekend, people are dying because of her mismanagement, but she takes no responsibility at all. None of them do. It’s always your fault.
You wonder how long the country is going to put up with this. No wonder our leaders seem so paranoid about QAnon and the Proud Boys and all these little groups you’ve never heard of. Why are they so worried about groups that clearly pose no threat to them? Because maybe on some level, they know that if they keep acting like this like Lori Lightfoot just did, or our public health authorities have for the last year, there may be a revolution.
These people are too incompetent, too nasty, too selfish, and too stupid to lead this country and they know that, and they’re worried about it.
In the meantime, you’ve got to wonder about some of their other policies. If they couldn’t be bothered to notice that every child in the United States of America was suffering from oxygen starvation, they didn’t even notice, what else have they gotten wrong? Why would anyone — and it pains us to say this but it’s true — why would anyone trust public health officials ever again?
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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