During covid, the pro-mask crowd purported to be the most caring. But they turned a blind eye to those with disabilities. Children with Down syndrome were punished with this cruel inhumane policy.
"The stories about the crimes against humanity that were committed over the past three years keep piling up. Lizzie's is just one of them. We all benefit from "having an Uncle Bobby" in our lives. Having one makes us a better human being. Better human beings understand what the Lizzies of the world mean to us."
This one really hit home since I grew up with a Down's younger brother. He was born in 1962 and my parents insisted that he come home (against advice) and live as normal life as possible. The fight my mother did, against the board of education of our small town, probably taught me to admire strong women, don't be afraid to fight the power, and the power of love and family too.
The worst part of the current "reflection" of what we should have learned since February of 2020 is that so many people in leadership roles refuse to admit their errors despite the facts and "learnings." The disadvantaged suffered the most, while the wealthy found ways around the limits. Every day we see examples of the elite who are so far removed from reality making decisions based upon their warped perspective. Your insistence on sending your kids to public schools is one of the things that made me a fan of you Jennifer. I just wish the public school leaders would lead the way in admitting where they failed rather than wanting to cover up and move on.
Apr 12, 2023·edited Apr 12, 2023Liked by Jennifer Sey
PLEASE spread this far and wide. This must NEVER be allowed to happen again. I am now inoculated against masks, against mandates, and I'll go to the streets in protest and fight like hell to stop it in the future. My 90-yeard old hard of hearing mother had a terrible time as well, even though she has hearing aids.
This will only stop if there is some sort of penalty for doing this. They are already planning things for the next pandemic, and people STILL are required to wear masks in medical settings in MA when good communication is crucial, people are STILL required to be vaxxed to go to college, and they are STILL required to be vaxxed to come into the US. We are all stark raving mad. And we are sheep to still go along with this.
And on top of this, the Cochrane report has shown that masks don’t even work! And honestly, has anyone observed kids wearing masks?? (Let alone adults.) It’s a joke! They hang loosely around their faces, often under their noses, etc.. Just wow...
Jennifer, thank you for amplifying Lizzie's story. My son with disabilities here in the ultra progressive Bay Area finished his last year and a half of school virtually with devastating impacts on his mental health. He still has to mask at his young adult day program even outdoors, and it is hard to understand him (speech issues though not Down's Syndrome). He's doing well thankfully now but this was so unconscionable. Uncle Bobby sounds amazing. 💖
Apr 18, 2023·edited Apr 19, 2023Liked by Jennifer Sey
This case study really drives home the point that the harms for some far outweigh the very limited benefits for the majority. Well done!
I'd also love to see a piece that covers just the everyday harms and costs of masking for the majority of children over the course of the pandemic.
My son turned 11 at the start of the pandemic. He was privileged in that he was able to go to an in-person International School in Missoula, Montana, starting in the fall of 2020. He finished his last 3 months of 5th grade remotely and was excited to start 6th grade in person at a new school. However, this new school had very aggressive Covid protocols, including a strict masking mandate. My son very quickly noticed the senselessness of masking, as he observed the lack of tight fit and flimsiness of cloth masks. He also noticed that his former rural public school with hundreds of students in one building was not requiring masks and did not experience increased numbers of Covid cases. He and his classmates got Covid a couple times over the course of the pandemic, all the while masking. The percentage of cases at his "blue" school were ultimately not less than cases at his former "red" public school which did not require masks. Eventually, one way or another all the kids got Covid and just blew right through it, so he couldn't understand why the masking mandates continued despite all the hassle around it. What made it worse is we knew of no family member that suffered any more than they had with the flu or a nasty cold, ourselves included. So we couldn't convince him that masking was worth it because we were protecting family members.
We chose this International school because we wanted him to learn Spanish in their intensive language program. However, the masking mandate made teaching and learning Spanish near impossible for obvious reasons, and by the end of the year, he had only a shaky grasp of a few words and phrases. In addition to undermining his communication in Spanish, masking challenged his verbal and non-verbal communication in English as well, mostly by impairing his ability to read his teachers' and classmates' facial expressions to understand their intentions, motivations, moods, acceptance or approval or lack there of. This thwarted his ability to form positive rapport and relations with teachers and students (a problem he had never had before). Moreover, he was often misunderstood (he did have a problem with enunciating clearly and masks made it worse). After repeating himself a couple of times, he would just give up and over time he chose just not to speak in class.
There were safety costs to masking as well. My son had a history of asthma and had much difficulty breathing through masks and the inhalation of mask fibers most certainly made it worse. He would come home with headaches and eczema rashes breaking out on his face from masking all day without a break. Sometimes, he would take a break outside and would be harshly disciplined. Masking was required outdoors during sports and other outdoor activities and because wearing a mask impaired his ability to see his feet well, he tripped and fell a couple of times, once hitting his head on the pavement/ice resulting in a concussion. My partner and I realized the insanity of it all the day we observed all the kids participating in a ropes course high off the ground on ropes all the while being required to wear masks. This was the day we had had enough and withdrew his enrollment and transferred him to another school with more reasonable policies around masking.
I think that over time we will learn how deeply the Covid policies, including but not limited to masking, have impaired the learning experience and development of our children in countless minor and very profound ways. The costs and harms certainly outweighed any benefit derived from masking. I hope we will do better the next time around with our cost benefit analysis, though I'm not too optimistic at this point.
As much as this activates my blood-curdling parental rage, I still cannot believe we mandated masks for anyone, ever. We knew in March 2020 that they did nothing to prevent respiratory viruses, but we did it anyway.
And for those that said it was just a sacrifice, I will never stop asking: then why not just wear one 24 hours a day, even now? It’s truly no big deal, right?
Apr 13, 2023·edited Apr 13, 2023Liked by Jennifer Sey
My daughter was in 3rd grade when covid started. She also has Down syndrome. I couldn’t agree or identify more with this post. We had a similar experience with masking and virtual school and the loss of precious peer time and interactions. My daughter watches faces for cues and that was lost for her for 2 years. Tragic for kids with DS and other disabilities. Thank you for sharing your sweet story of your uncle too.
This story demonstrates what a lie it was to accuse people of being “ableist” for opposing masks. It’s the disabled who were harmed the most by them. Down’s syndrome children. The deaf. The elderly trapped in nursing homes. All the people the covidians were pretending to care about. We cannot let this lie stand.
I'm glad to have retired from a long career in Special Ed. in 2017. There is no way I'd have stayed during the mask nazi years of tyranny. My gut instinct, early on, was that every school in the country should NOT have closed. It was illogical, unreasonable, and HIGHLY suspicious, to me.
I remember when "Covid amnesty" was proposed, and the idea still makes me furious.
People who used Covid as an excuse to infringe on basic civil rights should not get a pass. People who supported BLM protests (under the theory that they were "too important" to be forbidden by the same rules that kept stores closed and churches shut), but refused exceptions for those who, due to disabilities, were punished most by mask mandates, absolutely do not get a pass.
If they had a conscience, they would walk around with a sign reading "I was wrong" around their necks for the next three years.
Thank you for sharing your uncle's and Lizzie's stories! As a school based SLP, I was so incredibly frustrated with the ridiculous mask mandates and the impact they had on so many. I think the effects are still being felt, I sadly have students that are still not back to where they were before all this began. I wish organizations such as ASHA, CDC and AAP would acknowledge the damage that was done.
Very powerful article! And yet another example of how hordes of otherwise normal, caring people became unthinking robots, supporting insane policies. P.S. I think the word you were looking for when discussing Lizzie's ability to pronounce words is "enunciate" not "annunciate."
Restacked/cross-posted with this intro:
"The stories about the crimes against humanity that were committed over the past three years keep piling up. Lizzie's is just one of them. We all benefit from "having an Uncle Bobby" in our lives. Having one makes us a better human being. Better human beings understand what the Lizzies of the world mean to us."
Thanks for this, Jennifer.
This one really hit home since I grew up with a Down's younger brother. He was born in 1962 and my parents insisted that he come home (against advice) and live as normal life as possible. The fight my mother did, against the board of education of our small town, probably taught me to admire strong women, don't be afraid to fight the power, and the power of love and family too.
The worst part of the current "reflection" of what we should have learned since February of 2020 is that so many people in leadership roles refuse to admit their errors despite the facts and "learnings." The disadvantaged suffered the most, while the wealthy found ways around the limits. Every day we see examples of the elite who are so far removed from reality making decisions based upon their warped perspective. Your insistence on sending your kids to public schools is one of the things that made me a fan of you Jennifer. I just wish the public school leaders would lead the way in admitting where they failed rather than wanting to cover up and move on.
PLEASE spread this far and wide. This must NEVER be allowed to happen again. I am now inoculated against masks, against mandates, and I'll go to the streets in protest and fight like hell to stop it in the future. My 90-yeard old hard of hearing mother had a terrible time as well, even though she has hearing aids.
This will only stop if there is some sort of penalty for doing this. They are already planning things for the next pandemic, and people STILL are required to wear masks in medical settings in MA when good communication is crucial, people are STILL required to be vaxxed to go to college, and they are STILL required to be vaxxed to come into the US. We are all stark raving mad. And we are sheep to still go along with this.
And on top of this, the Cochrane report has shown that masks don’t even work! And honestly, has anyone observed kids wearing masks?? (Let alone adults.) It’s a joke! They hang loosely around their faces, often under their noses, etc.. Just wow...
Exactly!
Jennifer, thank you for amplifying Lizzie's story. My son with disabilities here in the ultra progressive Bay Area finished his last year and a half of school virtually with devastating impacts on his mental health. He still has to mask at his young adult day program even outdoors, and it is hard to understand him (speech issues though not Down's Syndrome). He's doing well thankfully now but this was so unconscionable. Uncle Bobby sounds amazing. 💖
This case study really drives home the point that the harms for some far outweigh the very limited benefits for the majority. Well done!
I'd also love to see a piece that covers just the everyday harms and costs of masking for the majority of children over the course of the pandemic.
My son turned 11 at the start of the pandemic. He was privileged in that he was able to go to an in-person International School in Missoula, Montana, starting in the fall of 2020. He finished his last 3 months of 5th grade remotely and was excited to start 6th grade in person at a new school. However, this new school had very aggressive Covid protocols, including a strict masking mandate. My son very quickly noticed the senselessness of masking, as he observed the lack of tight fit and flimsiness of cloth masks. He also noticed that his former rural public school with hundreds of students in one building was not requiring masks and did not experience increased numbers of Covid cases. He and his classmates got Covid a couple times over the course of the pandemic, all the while masking. The percentage of cases at his "blue" school were ultimately not less than cases at his former "red" public school which did not require masks. Eventually, one way or another all the kids got Covid and just blew right through it, so he couldn't understand why the masking mandates continued despite all the hassle around it. What made it worse is we knew of no family member that suffered any more than they had with the flu or a nasty cold, ourselves included. So we couldn't convince him that masking was worth it because we were protecting family members.
We chose this International school because we wanted him to learn Spanish in their intensive language program. However, the masking mandate made teaching and learning Spanish near impossible for obvious reasons, and by the end of the year, he had only a shaky grasp of a few words and phrases. In addition to undermining his communication in Spanish, masking challenged his verbal and non-verbal communication in English as well, mostly by impairing his ability to read his teachers' and classmates' facial expressions to understand their intentions, motivations, moods, acceptance or approval or lack there of. This thwarted his ability to form positive rapport and relations with teachers and students (a problem he had never had before). Moreover, he was often misunderstood (he did have a problem with enunciating clearly and masks made it worse). After repeating himself a couple of times, he would just give up and over time he chose just not to speak in class.
There were safety costs to masking as well. My son had a history of asthma and had much difficulty breathing through masks and the inhalation of mask fibers most certainly made it worse. He would come home with headaches and eczema rashes breaking out on his face from masking all day without a break. Sometimes, he would take a break outside and would be harshly disciplined. Masking was required outdoors during sports and other outdoor activities and because wearing a mask impaired his ability to see his feet well, he tripped and fell a couple of times, once hitting his head on the pavement/ice resulting in a concussion. My partner and I realized the insanity of it all the day we observed all the kids participating in a ropes course high off the ground on ropes all the while being required to wear masks. This was the day we had had enough and withdrew his enrollment and transferred him to another school with more reasonable policies around masking.
I think that over time we will learn how deeply the Covid policies, including but not limited to masking, have impaired the learning experience and development of our children in countless minor and very profound ways. The costs and harms certainly outweighed any benefit derived from masking. I hope we will do better the next time around with our cost benefit analysis, though I'm not too optimistic at this point.
As much as this activates my blood-curdling parental rage, I still cannot believe we mandated masks for anyone, ever. We knew in March 2020 that they did nothing to prevent respiratory viruses, but we did it anyway.
And for those that said it was just a sacrifice, I will never stop asking: then why not just wear one 24 hours a day, even now? It’s truly no big deal, right?
My daughter was in 3rd grade when covid started. She also has Down syndrome. I couldn’t agree or identify more with this post. We had a similar experience with masking and virtual school and the loss of precious peer time and interactions. My daughter watches faces for cues and that was lost for her for 2 years. Tragic for kids with DS and other disabilities. Thank you for sharing your sweet story of your uncle too.
Powerful post! It made me cry. This is the story mainstream media should have been covering but wasn’t.
This story demonstrates what a lie it was to accuse people of being “ableist” for opposing masks. It’s the disabled who were harmed the most by them. Down’s syndrome children. The deaf. The elderly trapped in nursing homes. All the people the covidians were pretending to care about. We cannot let this lie stand.
I'm glad to have retired from a long career in Special Ed. in 2017. There is no way I'd have stayed during the mask nazi years of tyranny. My gut instinct, early on, was that every school in the country should NOT have closed. It was illogical, unreasonable, and HIGHLY suspicious, to me.
I remember when "Covid amnesty" was proposed, and the idea still makes me furious.
People who used Covid as an excuse to infringe on basic civil rights should not get a pass. People who supported BLM protests (under the theory that they were "too important" to be forbidden by the same rules that kept stores closed and churches shut), but refused exceptions for those who, due to disabilities, were punished most by mask mandates, absolutely do not get a pass.
If they had a conscience, they would walk around with a sign reading "I was wrong" around their necks for the next three years.
Thank you for sharing your uncle's and Lizzie's stories! As a school based SLP, I was so incredibly frustrated with the ridiculous mask mandates and the impact they had on so many. I think the effects are still being felt, I sadly have students that are still not back to where they were before all this began. I wish organizations such as ASHA, CDC and AAP would acknowledge the damage that was done.
Very powerful article! And yet another example of how hordes of otherwise normal, caring people became unthinking robots, supporting insane policies. P.S. I think the word you were looking for when discussing Lizzie's ability to pronounce words is "enunciate" not "annunciate."
Yes thank you. I changed it! My bad!
" And we get lots of: Oh well, it was necessary in the fog of war. No harm no foul."
This is what angers me the most. Yes, harm and foul.
Pediatrics as a whole needs to atone and account for its dogmatic and cruel actions.
Jennifer - you may find this interesting too: https://guygin.substack.com/p/long-mask-a-new-meta-analysis-quantifies