Only 7 Countries in Western World Require Kids Masks in Schools

The U.S. is one of the few countries still recommending masks in schools as most nations let kids attend classes without face coverings.

Although states are allowed to set their own rules, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests universal indoor masking for all students above age two regardless of vaccination status.

In fact, 68.2 percent of the 500 of the largest school districts in America still require masks, according to data analytics firm Burbio.

However, at least 14 countries, including the UK, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Australia, don’t require kids to wear face coverings

Aside from the U.S., DailyMail.com could only identify six other Western countries where masking is broadly required or recommended in schools: Canada, France, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain.

In Canada, America’s closest neighbor, provinces get to set their own rules just like states do in the U.S., with most instituting mask mandates.

Of the 10 provinces, two require masks for all K-12 students, one requires for grades 1-12, two require for grades 4-12 and three require masking across all students.

The remaining two provinces, Quebec and Newfoundland & Labrador, only don’t require masks if case rates in the surrounding areas are low.

In France, mandatory face masks had been lifted by the requirement is being reimposed for all elementary school students as of November 15 due to rising case rates.  

Meanwhile, in Italy, Portugal, Spain and Romania, millions of children started of the school year wearing masks.

Recent studies have found that children are just as likely as adults to test positive for Covid, but about half are asymptomatic compared to 10 percent of over-18s.

The risk of being hospitalized and death is much smaller with less than 0.1 percent of kids falling severely ill or dying of Covid.

And because of this low risk, most Western nations have opted to ditch the masks and have kids return to ‘normalcy’ in classrooms.

In the UK, for example, millions of children returned to schools in early September with face coverings not required. 

And while masks are a politically divisive issue in the U.S., members of both the Conservative and Labour Parties in the UK have stated that wearing masks prevent children from being able to communicate and socialize.

In Norway, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health advises against school-aged children wearing masks. Pictured: Third grade pupils at Nordstrand Steinerskole school in Oslo, Norway, April 2020

A recent DailyMail.com analysis found that kids in the U.S. are being hospitalized at a rate up to four times higher than kids in the UK.

In Scandinavian countries – Denmark, Norway and Sweden – almost all COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted, including mask mandates.

In fact, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health advises against school-aged children wearing masks.

In Irelands, kids under age 13 are not required to wear masks and in Iceland and the Netherlands, middle and high school students are only required to do so when not seated in classrooms.

So why are Europeans less likely to mandate masks in schools? There are a few reasons.

Firstly, many European populations are more vaccinated than several U.S. states.

For example, West Virginia and Idaho have yet to vaccinate 50 percent of their populations compared to more than 70 percent in all Nordic countries, according to data from the U.S. CDC and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

Secondly, trust in authority figures is higher in the European Union than in the U.S.

‘Because of this, parents and the policymakers representing them may feel less need to protect children from each other with masks,’ writes Anthony La Mesa in Medium.

Another reason could be that more testing occurs in Europe than in the U.S. 

Currently the UK’s Department of Education requires all secondary school students, between ages 11 and 18, be tested at home twice a week using tests.

Additionally, Norway is mass testing students to phase out quarantining students amid Covid outbreaks.    

Because there is no regular testing at many U.S. schools, kids are being sent to classrooms instead of being kept at home because tests aren’t detecting these cases.

This can lead to these children being hospitalized themselves or infecting other children who end up hospitalized.    

OC Board of Education to Sue Gavin Newsom Over Face Masks

Board members say that Gov. Newsom has misused his power “in a way that threatens serious harm to Orange County’s children.”

Claiming that wearing masks harms young children, the Orange County Board of Education announced Tuesday that it plans to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom over what it calls an “unwarranted” state mandate that students wear masks in classrooms this school year.

The board voted 4-0 during closed session in favor of filing the suit, and then had an attorney read a press release in which they said Newsom has abused his authority by indefinitely continuing to issue health edicts under a state of emergency.

Last month, state officials ordered all students, teachers, staff and visitors on school campuses to wear face masks while indoors in the coming school year.

“He has now misused that power in a way that threatens serious harm to Orange County’s children,” board members wrote.

Board members Mari Barke, Tim Shaw, Lisa Sparks and Ken Williams voted in favor of filing the lawsuit during a special meeting Tuesday that featured only one item on the agenda: litigation. Board member Beckie Gomez, who attended the beginning of the meeting, left at 4:30 p.m and was not present for the vote.

Board members, who are elected, have been vocal about their views against face masks in schools. But while the state said its masks-in-class mandate will be enforced by school districts, the Board of Education does not oversee any of the county’s 27 districts.

In addition to saying Newsom and officials in the state’s executive agencies are overstepping their authority with the mask mandate, the board also questioned the validity of face masks.

“Putting aside for the moment the lack of a sound medical or scientific basis for the Governor’s requirement to mask school children (who in general are neither at risk from COVID-19 nor likely to spread it), and also putting aside the lack of any thoughtful, well-considered and transparent balancing of the substantial harms of forced masking of juveniles against the purported benefits, the Governor and his state-level executive agencies do not have the power to continue the state of emergency indefinitely, and to continue to suspend the Administrative Procedure Act to circumvent normal agency rulemaking requirements.”

On Tuesday, Board members did not present evidence that face masks harm children. In the past, they have said that the continuous use of face masks hurts students’ education as well as their emotional well-being. Children learning English and those with special needs especially need to see a teacher’s face, they said.

The state’s in-class mask order has added a layer of controversy during the pandemic, with some parents supporting the move and others saying it will harm their children. In Orange County, at least three school boards – representing Capistrano, Placentia-Yorba Linda, and Saddleback Unified school districts – voted for resolutions this summer that asked the state to ease the mandate and make face masks optional.

The Orange County Board of Education will be represented for free by Tyler & Bursch, a law firm with offices in Anaheim and Murrieta.

This would mark the second pandemic-related lawsuit the board files against state officials.

Last August, the board filed a lawsuit against Newsom and the state’s public health officer, Sonia Y. Angell, seeking in-person learning at a time when school campuses across California closed down due to the pandemic. That lawsuit went straight to the California Supreme Court, where Justices asked Gov. Newsom to respond to the Board’s petition and a second related lawsuit. On Sept. 9, the Court refused to hear the case, which alleged that actions by Newsom and Angell were unconstitutional and violated the right to equal access to education.

That lawsuit also was represented pro-bono by Tyler & Bursch.

On July 22, two parent groups – Let Them Breathe and Reopen California Schools – filed a lawsuit against Newsom and state public health officials, seeking to end the school face mask mandate.

Here is the article for the OC register.