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The Coming Summer Camp Crisis
When I signed my kids up for camp over the winter, I made clear to the camp administrators that their registration was contingent upon my kids not having to wear masks during the day. At the time, neither I nor the administrators thought that the camp would have to require masks, especially considering the fact that they didn’t have to last year. But we underestimated to sheer idiocy bordering on evil of the CDC and our deep-blue county. The CDC announced it recommended that kids age two and over wear a mask all day, and could only remove them in order to eat or drink or when they’re swimming. My county adopted these recommendations, passing them down to camps recently.
My concern about masking is somewhat unique among my fellow parents in the area; most people in my community have been sending their kids to school all day in a mask all year. But summer camp is another animal, it’s one thing to sit at a desk in a temperate classroom with a mask on, but it’s quite another running around on a soccer field in 100% humidity in 90+ degrees.
I’m not alone in my fear of what masks might mean for kids outside in the summer heat. I spoke to Dr. Tracy Hoeg, an MD and PhD physician epidemiologist studying COVID-19 in children affiliated with UC Davis about masking kids, especially outdoors and playing sports. Dr. Hoeg currently works in the sports field and is an avid runner herself, and she made clear to me how risky she finds masking children in an exercise setting: “It is important that children not be required to wear masks during exercise because of discomfort and because the mask gets sweaty and kids just breathe around the side to get enough air. In our Wood, CO WI study kids did not have to wear masks at recess and we had no COVID spread related to recess and very minimal during the whole study period despite high community prevalence. Kids benefit so much from exercise and need a break from masking and I have only run across ONE case reported to be spread between kids outdoors.”
She tweeted similarly recently as well,
The topic of masking kids outdoors continues to come up so I felt this was worth re-sharing. Masks not found to have any effect in outdoor contact-sports settings in kids. This should also apply to recess. Important to not discourage kids from exercising when no gain from masking https://t.co/CFN41TFbX2
— Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) May 2, 2021
So why is it that the CDC, on the tail end of this public health crisis, is making one last summer miserable for kids? When I corresponded with Dr. Shveta Raju, a practicing board-certified internal medicine physician in Georgia, she hypothesized, “CDC summer camp guidelines ignore the low transmission rates outdoors throughout this pandemic, the low risk to children from covid19 and the absence of trials showing efficacy or necessity of masks in controlling covid19 transmission in summer camp settings after adult vaccination. Based upon the recent reports of outside political influence on CDC guidelines, physicians and other advocates for children should question if the summer camp guidelines are really in the best interest of children.”
The influence Dr. Raju is referring to relates to a recent New York Post article on how the CDC allowed teacher’s unions to review and directly impact their reopening guidelines for schools, making recommendations that were more advantageous to unions instead of students and their parents. It’s not conspiratorial in the least to wonder if the CDC is also allowing unions to weigh in on summer camps; and if summer camps go off without a hitch despite a lack of masks, teacher’s unions have far less ammunition to make demands come fall. And speaking of fall? Liberals are already laying the groundwork for classes not resuming as normal:
President Biden hasn't committed to K-12 schools reopening full-time and in-person in the fall, one of his senior advisers said, because the coronavirus remains unpredictable. https://t.co/jLeUphEprI
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) May 2, 2021
With these almost certainly politically motivated recommendations on masks at summer camps, we’re once again watching progressives manipulating our kids. This time, though, we aren’t risking just our kids’ development, emotional health or their comfort, but their actual physical safety.
Published in General
This is the end result of “You Can’t Be Too Careful” thinking. Focus exclusively on the minimal risk posed by Covid. Ignore all other risks associated with wearing masks.
Consider moving to Florida.
I don’t have kids, but their decision to mask them outdoors is insane and unscientific. You were probably looking forward to sending them to camp as much as they were looking forward to attending, but I would understand your not sending them after all.
I don’t see how this whole mask thing hasn’t traumatized children everywhere. Maybe they think it’s like Halloween, I don’t know . . .
After the “unpredictability” of basic Covid waves has worn off, …then there will be the “unpredictability” of mutations (consider India), and after that, the “unpredictability” of new viruses, etc. Essentially, just close the schools but keep paying the teachers.
But didn’t the CDC announce a couple weeks ago that outdoor masking was unnecessary? Why reverse that, particularly for children?
Why are we still following guidelines from March 2020?
Did I miss something? Does the President of the United States have a say as to whether Justice McWokerson Middle School in Santa Fe, New Mexico opens or not?
We never should have created a federal department of education.
Thing is, all around the country schools are open full time. I gather that in deep blue areas, they’re still cowering in panic.
But in the end, we know who has the final say: Teacher’s Unions. Colluding with the CDC.
You moving my husband’s job to Florida? I have to say, it’s frustrating constantly being told to uproot our entire lives because other people have gone crazy.
Got news for you. That’s exactly what my late wife and I did when we left Michigan in 1979 for Texas. We had both lived in Michigan all our lives. We uprooted our lives because the people in Michigan had gone crazy. We decided it was more important to raise the kids we had in a sane environment. I now have three happy, productive adult children with successful careers. (All still live in Texas.) Cannot say as much for my nieces and nephews who grew up in Michigan or New England.
Jobs can be found anywhere. Your children’s sanity, not so much.
Yes, we are moving his job to Florida because we love you and want your family to be free!
That’s a big part of the American story isn’t it – starting with those we call the Pilgrims, those we call the Pioneers, those who won the West. It wasn’t all about land, gold, and oil. Not trying to tell folks how to live their lives, but there it is.
Right up there with “let white working class towns die!”
In their defense, the recent CDC guidelines for no masks outdoors was only for vaccinated people, and children are not eligible for vaccination.
But I thought it had been established that even without vaccination 1) children almost never have a significant reaction to the virus, 2) children rarely are the vehicle of transmission of the virus to adults (though I do know a few people who believe they contracted the virus via their children or grandchildren), and 3) outdoor transmission of the virus (in children or adults) was virtually nonexistent. So, there is little logic for masking children anywhere, and no logic for masking children outdoors.
Really? Because that’s stupidly obvious right there. Masking outdoors was never needed because there is little if any evidence of outdoor transmission.
What good is the CDC?
It provides jobs for overeducated nitwits, allowing them to pay off their student loans.
Beyond that? Ya got me. It seemingly does very little to control diseases.