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[0] As the Omicron variant shows signs of peaking, parents look forward to a future when their children no longer wear masks in school.
[1] We'll look at the science behind mask mandates for children.
[2] Do they do more harm than good?
[3] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor -in -Chief John Bickley.
[4] It's February 5th, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire.
[5] The San Francisco Police Chief is now refusing to work with the city's district attorney on police force cases.
[6] He has accused the DA of concealing evidence to harm police officers.
[7] officers.
[8] We'll look into the allegations.
[9] And depression, suicide, and self -harm among children all rose during the pandemic.
[10] We look at the data and how COVID policies are affecting the mental health of kids.
[11] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[12] Stay tuned.
[13] We have the news you need to know.
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[20] Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the public response to COVID -19 is mask mandates for young children.
[21] How does wearing a mask affect the spread of COVID?
[22] children's health and cognitive development.
[23] The Daily Wires, Ben Johnson took a deep dive into the science behind mask mandates for children.
[24] Thanks for joining us, Ben.
[25] Thanks for having me. Okay, so currently, almost half of all school districts have mask mandates in place.
[26] But how strong is the science to show wearing masks actually reduces the spread of COVID?
[27] It's definitely underwhelming.
[28] One of the studies the CDC based its early mask mandates on in Georgia found that the difference in infections between schools with mask mandates, and those without was not statistically significant.
[29] That dovetails with findings in states like Florida, New York, and Massachusetts, and even studies from around the world.
[30] The U .K. Department of Education released a report last month saying its study of mask use in schools nationwide was not conclusive.
[31] In the Netherlands, the Minister of Medical Care said the nation would not impose a mask mandate because, quote, from a medical perspective, there is no proven effectiveness of masks.
[32] In fact, a study released last December in North Dakota compared two school districts in the same county and found the district with a mask mandate had a higher percentage of COVID -19 cases.
[33] So at best, the results are inconclusive.
[34] Yeah.
[35] But CDC director Rochelle Willinsky recently testified before the Senate that mask wearing significantly reduced COVID spread.
[36] That's right.
[37] Director Walensky also referred to the study during an interview on MSNBC.
[38] The study that you're referring to in Arizona demonstrated that schools that had masks were three and a half times less likely to have a school.
[39] outbreak than schools that didn't have masks.
[40] But the study she's citing, which looked at Arizona schools last July and August, had serious problems.
[41] It studied outbreaks, not cases.
[42] Some of the schools were open twice as long as others.
[43] Researchers didn't control for vaccination rates.
[44] And it included virtual schools and vocational programs that aren't schools at all.
[45] Okay.
[46] One scientist called the study, quote, so unreliable that it probably should not have been entered into the public discourse.
[47] But it continues to guide the Biden administration's recommendations.
[48] That's kind of concerning.
[49] So the most common kind of coverings are cloth masks.
[50] What does the science say about wearing cloth masks?
[51] Essentially, everyone now admits that cloth masks do little to stop the spread of aerosol droplets that carry COVID -19.
[52] At least one study shows they may do more harm than good, even for adults.
[53] In 2015, the British Medical Journal reviewed the way health care workers used masks and found, quote, moisture, retention, reuse of cloth masks, and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection.
[54] They found that cloth masks provide almost zero percent filtration of viruses.
[55] And that was back in 2015, so we've known this for years.
[56] We have, you know, and it even had a concerning development for the coronavirus because they found, quote, observations during SARS suggested double masking and other practices increased the risk of infection.
[57] These effects may be associated with cloth masks.
[58] Now that cloth masks are no longer the standard with some school districts having said, you know, N95 masks have to be worn.
[59] What does the science say about those?
[60] Right.
[61] It's hard to assess how protective those would be because there are no child size N95 masks.
[62] The FDA says, quote, N95 respirators are not designed for children.
[63] A proper fit cannot be achieved on children, end quote.
[64] That means children won't get all or possibly any of the benefits of an N95 mask that adults would get out of it.
[65] While most evidence shows N95 masks are the best protection available to adults.
[66] Some researchers have questioned their effectiveness as well.
[67] A March 2020 study from the Journal of Evidence -Based Medicine found, quote, there were no statistically significant differences in preventing laboratory -confirmed influenza, laboratory -confirmed respiratory viral infections, laboratory -confirmed respiratory infection, and influenza -like illness using N95 respirators and surgical masks.
[68] Have researchers found any physical harms associated with children wearing masks?
[69] Physically, researchers say that children inhale high levels of carbon dioxide while they're wearing regular cloth masks.
[70] Children inhaled six times the amount of carbon dioxide allowed by law within three minutes of wearing a mask.
[71] That's from a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last June.
[72] The average school child wears a mask nine times that long.
[73] The German researchers behind that study said 68 % of the children in that study reported respiratory problems.
[74] Critics also say that surgeons wear a mask for hours at a time, so So, of course, they think that they should be safe, but of course, those surgeons are all adults.
[75] Right.
[76] That's a big difference there.
[77] Are there other kinds of problems that have been associated with children wearing masks?
[78] The UK study, which, again, said its results were not conclusive, found that children showed lower levels of learning and performance when their teacher wore a mask.
[79] Children with autism, developmental, or hearing issues face the biggest impact.
[80] Researchers in Greece in Italy said that children who can't see other people's facial expressions may suffer some learning loss as well.
[81] But researchers have said there's never been a study of long -term mask use.
[82] We really only have the faintest idea of the harms that these policies may have caused.
[83] Right, and how could we know that?
[84] It sounds like we'll be following this story for a long time.
[85] Thanks, Ben.
[86] My pleasure.
[87] That's Daily Wire reporter, Ben Johnson.
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[93] San Francisco's police chief is sounding the alarm on the city's district attorney, accusing the DA of concealing evidence in criminal investigations into the police force.
[94] Now, the police chief is saying he won't even work with the San Francisco DA on police force cases.
[95] Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Alorty, is here to tell us what's going on.
[96] So, Marade, this seems like a pretty drastic move on the part of the police chief.
[97] What happened here?
[98] Right, yeah.
[99] While San Francisco Police Chief William Scott does seem to think this is an incredibly serious breach of trust, Scott said that, quote, very serious concerns have been brought to his attention regarding district attorney Chase of Budin's handling of criminal police.
[100] force investigations.
[101] Specifically, Scott is accusing the DA of breaking their mutual agreement after a DA investigator testified that she was directed to mislead the police department.
[102] The agreement was to allow the DA's office to take the lead on criminal investigations of police officers and to improve the public's confidence in any decisions to charge cops with misconduct.
[103] That agreement was reached in 2019 and last year it was renewed for another two years, but now the police chief wants to scrap it.
[104] Okay, so how did all of this come to light.
[105] Well, it all started with the case of Officer Terrence Stangle, a white cop who's accused of beating a black man, Dakari Spears, with a baton back in 2019.
[106] Stangle, the cop, now faces criminal battery and assault charges.
[107] Officers were responding to a domestic violence report when the incident took place.
[108] During the criminal investigation into the incident, one of the DA investigators, Megan Hayashi, testified in court that the prosecutor in the case told her to remove the parts of Stengel's arrest warrant that described Akari Spears, including that Spears was abusing his girlfriend before police arrived on the scene.
[109] So basically, she was asked to remove portions of the testimony that reflected poorly on Spears.
[110] She said she was, quote, told to remove sections and that it wasn't relevant.
[111] She added that she felt pressure to sign the altered warrant because there was a general understanding that, quote, if you don't sign these things, you'll be fired.
[112] She claimed her job was threatened on at least three occasions.
[113] This apparently turned into a pretty explosive moment in the courtroom.
[114] So this came to light in court testimony, and then reportedly the chief heard about it and was extremely upset.
[115] Oh, yes.
[116] He made it very clear that he was upset.
[117] The police chief, Scott, wrote a letter to Boudin, the DA, saying that it appears the DA's office has an ongoing practice of, quote, withholding and concealing information and evidence in investigations against San Francisco police officers.
[118] So some very serious accusations against the San Francisco D .A. Indeed.
[119] Mairead, thanks for reporting.
[120] Thanks, Georgia.
[121] That's Daily Wire reporter, Marade Allorty.
[122] New data about childhood mental health trends during the pandemic is beginning to paint a picture of how COVID -19 and our response to it has affected children.
[123] Here to discuss is Daily Wire's Charlotte Pence Bond.
[124] So Charlotte, we're starting to get a clearer picture about how the COVID era has affected kids.
[125] Can you break down some of the key findings?
[126] Sure.
[127] So last year, the CDC reported that during 2020, the amount of mental health -related emergency department visits among teens ages 12 to 17 went up 31 % over 2019.
[128] In May 2020, emergency department visits for suspected suicide attempts started to go up with young people ages 12 to 17, specifically with young girls, by as much as 50 % during one time period in 2021 compared to 2019.
[129] And this isn't just a U .S. problem.
[130] Surgeon General Vivek Morthy released an advisory via HHS last year, noting that recent studies looking at 80 ,000 youth around the world discovered that depressive and anxiety symptoms doubled during the pandemic.
[131] Morthy said that 25 % of youth experienced depression and 20 % experienced anxiety.
[132] Scientific American likewise reported a study by Fair Health, looking at private health care claim records and found that among teenagers, between the ages of 13 and 18, the claim lines for intentional self -harm as a percentage of all medical claim lines in that age bracket went up 99 .83 % in April 2020 compared to the previous year.
[133] So to reiterate, that's a doubling of self -harm in kids from 2019 to 2020.
[134] Exactly.
[135] The same study also noted that mental health diagnoses increased between spring in November 2020, which was the height of the pandemic.
[136] Kids' ages.
[137] 6 to 12 showed an increase in obsessive compulsive disorder and tick disorders from the same time period a year prior.
[138] And is the working hypothesis now that all of this is related to the stress of the pandemic?
[139] Well, not necessarily the virus itself, but the disruption to regular life, not being able to interact with friends, not being able to play sports, or just be kids.
[140] People have also been trapped indoors, and for kids in abusive or high stress home environments, they've been less able to seek outside support.
[141] In terms of minimizing these negative outcomes for kids, what are some of the policies being recommended?
[142] Well, it depends which authority you defer to.
[143] Here in the U .S., it's largely been parents who have fought for looser COVID restrictions and more normalcy for kids, whereas the CDC has erred on the side of more masks and proactive school closures.
[144] However, in Europe, the health authorities have mostly advised against imposing restrictions on kids.
[145] And what sort of data do we have on the effect?
[146] of mask wearing on kids?
[147] Well, it seems like that's part of the problem.
[148] COVID hasn't been around that long, so we don't have a ton of longitudinal data.
[149] There is some early evidence that mask wearing may cause speech delays in babies and toddlers, but it'll be a while before we know the full range of effects.
[150] But just looking at the mental health picture for youth, it's clear that young people have been hit particularly hard.
[151] Barry Weiss, the columnist who famously left the New York Times in 2020, had this to say about the pandemic and our response to it.
[152] And you will realize most importantly that this is going to be remembered by the younger generation as a catastrophic moral crime.
[153] The city of Flint, Michigan, which is 80%, I think, minority students, has just announced indefinite virtual schooling.
[154] In the past two years, we've seen among young girls, a 51 % increase in self -harm.
[155] People are killing themselves.
[156] They are anxious.
[157] They are depressed.
[158] They are lonely.
[159] that is why we need to end it more than any inconvenience that it's been to the rest of us.
[160] I think I think we've definitely seen by now how hard it's been to balance these virus -specific public health advice with general public well -being.
[161] Definitely.
[162] Charlotte, thanks for reporting.
[163] Thanks for having me. That's Daily Wires, Charlotte Pence Bond.
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