Point 13 Public Health Order 8.27.2021

As a school bus driver, I can tell you by first-hand experience– the practicality of masking these kids will not work.  Most people simply, do not wear masks properly, especially children.  The mask they bring from home and the one’s given at school are not effective nor do they fit properly.  I’ve seen students’ masks totally saturated with saliva and snot flowing from both barrels of the nose. 

Masks are worn over and over, chewed on, draped around their necks, dropped on the floor, stepped on, and then put back on their face.  These dirty masks are not changed regularly with clean ones and end up being a repository of bacterial and viral contamination.  The children end up fiddling with their masks and touching their faces more because of this unnatural covering. 

How can this be safe or effective?  If anything, forcing children to wear wet contaminated masks increase the spread of disease. Everything we’ve been saying today is that it’s safer to allow our children to be children and give them vitamin D3, zinc and good nutrition and allow their natural immunity to do its job to protect them.  Let’s not take the fun and the freedoms from them that we all enjoyed because of this unfounded fear that really isn’t applicable to this age group.

In addition to the negative health aspects, my wife is a paraprofessional working with special needs children in the Charlevoix Schools.  She has said, it is virtually impossible for them to wear a mask and communicate and learn.  Without being able to see facial expressions a large aspect of communication is lost. As a result, many are struggling to keep up in their schoolwork and social interaction. 

As educated adults, how can we reasonably and responsibly apply this burden on our children, when they need more from us?  They deserve our best efforts to care for them.  This mandate is not only impossible to carry out, it is harmful for the health and well-being of our children.