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The United States needs to honor The Science and stop masking children aged 5 and younger.
It’s fantastic news that the CDC has given vaccinated adults permission to stop wearing masks outside where transmission of the coronavirus is extremely rare, but Americans are still engaged in another unreasonable masking practice: forcing young children — which I’ll define as under 6 — to wear masks.
The CDC states that “people 2 years of age and older” should wear masks, but this guidance departs from WHO and UNICEF guidance — endorsed by the European Union’s ECDC : “Considerations for the use of face masks in children have been published by the World Health Organization” — on masking children, which clearly states that “children aged 5 years and under should not be required to wear masks” and children aged 6–11 should only be masked based on some specific conditions. The guidance is worth reading in full:
The WHO and UNICEF guidance also rejects forcing all children — not just young children — to wear masks when engaged in sports or outdoor play, something required by many U.S. school systems and cities, such as San Francisco and New York. Again, worth reading in full:
