A letter from a Boston high school senior in opposition to school mask mandates

For the first post on my Substack, I am featuring a letter that was sent to me yesterday by Enrique Abud Evereteze, a high school senior at Boston Latin Academy. He speaks multiple languages and is interested in being a writer.

I have written before that one thing I liked about Norway’s pandemic investigation was that they interviewed children about their pandemic experiences. As my own son, who is 14, just learned he will likely return to a mask mandate in school in Sacramento following winter break (if we remain in the high COVID Community Level), I was struck by the eloquence, arguments and evidence Enrique used to support his case for not returning to student mask mandates in 2023. In his own words, “it is dehumanizing” and “students have been used as ineffective shields”. He also shows he knows the data on masking better than the vast majority of adults in the U.S. But Dr. Ashish Jha did recently correctly admit “there’s no study in the world that shows masks work that well”. I have also covered much of the evidence here for Sensible Medicine. As Boston and other cities in the US consider a return to school mask mandates after winter break, thank you Enrique for using your talent as a writer to explain why a return to school mask mandates is not supported when weighing the existing evidence of benefits vs. harms.

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Good day Superintendent Skipper,

My name is Enrique Abud Evereteze, and I am a senior at Boston Latin Academy. I hear that you are considering reinstating a mask mandate across all Boston Public Schools for two weeks after the break. I, as a student, humbly request that you not reinstate this mandate. In addition, I would like to have the chance to speak at the next meeting between you and the Boston Public Health Commission. I completely understand that your concern is to keep schools open and protect students. However, multiple sources suggest that masks do not stop the spread of COVID-19. I am not saying this to sound like a conspiracy theorist, this is the truth, no matter how “high-quality” the mask in question is. I have attached a variety of reputable sources to this email to verify my claim. In addition, if people want to wear masks, then I don’t have a problem with it–it is their personal choice to do so. However, I think that it would be very unfair to force other people’s choices onto everyone else.

    If you and the Boston Public Health Commission are understandably worried about a sharp increase in cases, then I ask that you all consider a few things. First of all, there are plenty of school districts across the nation which haven’t had mask mandates for over a year, and yet have not seen sharp increases in cases. Second, there is no logical reason for mandating masks for only BPS schools, as it is clear that the K-12 population is at the lowest risk of being affected by COVID. Why should we have to wear masks when massive groups of people can go to Celtics and Bruins games unmasked? Third, despite the fact that there was a mask mandate in effect until mid-June of last school year, many people still contracted the virus, and record numbers of faculty and students were out. Fourth, the idea of children being forced to wear a mask, especially in 2023, is frankly dehumanizing. It is also unsanitary when you consider the fact that many people reuse the same masks constantly. In addition, multiple studies have outlined the harms that come with wearing face masks for extended periods of time. Finally, almost three years later, we need to consider the fact that natural immunity is prevalent, and live with the reality that this virus is here to stay. People can get the COVID vaccine if they want to; that notion has been around for almost two years now.

    Therefore, for these reasons, I calmly ask that you and the Boston Public Health Committee not reinstate this mandate. The reality is, mask mandates are and never were about protecting young people. I feel that I, and the rest of the students, have been used as ineffective shields to “protect” the elderly. That is not what a society based around public health does. Again, I have attached a variety of credible sources below suggesting the notion that masks do not stop the spread of COVID-19. In addition, some of these sources discuss other impacts of mask mandates, including the possible harms of extended mask use and the opinions of parents on mask mandates. With all that said, I hope that you, Superintendent Skipper, and the Boston Public Health Committee reach a rational, logical, and scientifically supported conclusion on this matter.

Regards,

Enrique

Sources (with short summaries):

NEJM’s Disappointing Decision to Publish the Boston School Mask Study

This source discusses the major flaws of a recent study published by the New England Journal of Medicine. The author, an accredited epidemiologist who works at the Florida Department of Health, notes that case rates in various schools across Massachusetts increased independent of the times in which mask mandates were dropped (as seen before February in graphs A and B). In addition, there is no mention of seroprevalence (natural immunity) rates in the study, which is important considering the fact that a decrease in seroprevalence leads to an increase in infection rate. Furthermore, the study contradicts itself in the sense that school case rates were similar to municipal case rates in all districts (masked and unmasked), which brings the purported impact of mandating masks into question. Finally, the study failed to mention the downsides that come with forced masking, including a greater difficulty in hearing others and processing emotions.

2.              https://brownstone.org/articles/swedens-strategy-once-again-proven-correct/

This source discusses the COVID experience of Sweden, a country which never imposed mask mandates and/or lockdowns of any kind. First of all, in a comparison of excess mortality rate per 100000 in 30 European countries, Sweden had the fifth-lowest rate of deaths. In addition, during 2021, when mask mandates and vaccine passports were introduced in many European countries, the excess mortality rates of those countries increased, while Sweden’s actually decreased. One more important thing to mention is that this is all from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) own data.

3.              https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1773983/v1

This source is a study of two neighboring K-12 districts in Fargo, North Dakota and West Fargo, North Dakota. At the beginning of the 2021-2022 academic school year, Fargo mandated masks for their schools, while West Fargo did not. Additionally, both school districts had similar student populations, similar demographics, and only a 5% difference between fractions of low-income students. Their mitigation policies were also similar. The study found that Fargo, the district that mandated masks, actually had a higher percentage of students testing positive during the Omicron spike in winter. In addition, throughout the fall semester, the cumulative rates were similar (13% and 12.9% to be exact). Finally, after Fargo removed its mask mandate in January, there were no surges in both districts.

4.              https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/about-40-of-parents-think-mask-wearing-harmed-their-kids-school-experience/

As the title says, in a survey conducted by Harvard’s T. H Chan School of Public Health and POLITICO, around 40% of parents think that mask mandates harm their kids’ school experience. Only 11% of parents believe the contrary, and the rest are indifferent to the matter. In addition, about half of all parents believe that it is not necessary for a child to wear a mask at school in order to be safe from COVID.

Note: The margin of error in this survey is an estimated 5.9%.

5.              https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/article/mandatory-masking-of-school-children-is-a-bad-idea/

This article, written by Neeraj Sood, professor of public policy at USC, and Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford University, outlines the harms that mask mandates have on schoolchildren. First of all, mask mandates disrupt ease of communication between peers and teachers. Second, emotions are less recognizable, leading to a disruption in emotional understanding among peers. Finally, due to the aforementioned, mask mandates could very well contribute to anxiety and depression, both of which have been on the rise ever since the start of the pandemic, especially for teenagers.