Keeping school kids in masks. I think she makes a number of good points, which amount to the notion that masking kids all day is not a cost-free option. For instance, it can inhibit development of language skills in young kids and in kids for whom English is not their first language. Seeing faces is critical to this development, she claims.

Also, benefits of masking in lab settings are one thing; benefits in real classrooms, where kids wear different kinds of masks, and where it can be very hard to make kids wear them properly all day long, is another. She did not come across as a politically motivated speaker - she was all in on vaccines for young kids, as a doc and a mom, she claims.

The thing that bothers me most about this is everyone’s positions on school mask mandates does seem dictated by their politics. I hate that it’s a sort of political identity thing.

Another thing I hate is the hysteria. Yeah, JPM and others act like masking is Middle Ages level persecution. It isn’t. But others act as though Covid in kids is like the Black Plague. Or like a classroom full of 9 or 10, or even 15 year olds, can be counted on to mask up properly all day long to ensure none of these kids become “vectors”.

Bottom line, there is plenty to suggest a cost to masking kids, and that should be weighed against the potential benefits. Soberly, without all the political baggage.