Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 473 ｜ Carrie Underwood Gets It： Masks Don't Belong in Schools (with Data)

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone had a great Monday and Tuesday

00:00:15.560 and Wednesday so far. Today we are going to talk about Carrie Underwood. We have never

00:00:22.080 talked about Carrie Underwood on this podcast before. And if you have no idea what I'm talking

00:00:26.360 about, what happened was she got blasted on Twitter and across social media for liking a tweet about

00:00:32.120 kids not needing to wear masks at school. We're going to break down the data on masks and why

00:00:37.460 it actually matters. But before we get into it, as you guys know, there are a lot of big things going

00:00:45.940 on in the world right now. We've talked about them this week, especially yesterday. If you haven't

00:00:51.040 listened to yesterday's episode about Afghanistan, I encourage you to do that. We really give all of

00:00:56.960 the context and all the details, information, insight that's necessary to really understand

00:01:02.800 what's going on. Tomorrow, I'm going to be talking big picture about what's going on in the world,

00:01:08.480 what's going on in Afghanistan, taking a theological view of all of that and what we can learn from

00:01:15.120 this that is going to be a really, really important episode. The big thing that is weighing on me and on

00:01:21.600 the hearts of Christians everywhere is the persecution being suffered by Christians in

00:01:27.320 Afghanistan right now. They are no strangers to persecution, of course, as many of us are in the

00:01:33.780 United States. But this may be more intense persecution than many Afghan Christians have seen

00:01:40.100 in a very long time, maybe even in their lifetime. So tomorrow, we are going to talk about this,

00:01:48.280 like I said, from a spiritual perspective, most importantly, but also practically and politically,

00:01:53.460 how we can help, what this all means. And I understand this is the big thing that is weighing on your

00:02:01.620 heart and your mind right now. Today, though, we're going to take a break from talking about some of

00:02:07.740 that. We're going to talk about something that is objectively less important, but it's still

00:02:13.100 important. And I mean, how needed, though, is it to get perspective on things when we see the

00:02:19.340 suffering of people around the world? It makes the political problems that we have in America seem so

00:02:25.520 small. And yet they are problems that exist. And because they exist, they do matter to an extent

00:02:31.880 because they affect people. Like we're talking about policies that actually have an impact on

00:02:37.780 people's lives. And so that's why we're talking about mask mandates in schools and if they're

00:02:42.840 really necessary. And while we know this is extremely small potatoes compared to so much of what's going

00:02:48.820 on in the world, I still think that it's worth talking about because the truth matters. Two plus two

00:02:53.860 equaling four may seem like an inconsequential equation compared to more complicated mathematical

00:02:59.360 formulas that are used to build rockets or create life-saving medical treatments. But it's

00:03:05.860 foundational. Without it, none of the other formulas would make sense or even be possible.

00:03:11.280 And in the same way, saying what is true about seemingly little things is necessary to knowing and

00:03:17.260 saying what is true about the much bigger things. And the truth is always worth saying, especially in

00:03:23.040 my opinion, when it comes to questioning what the state sanctions in the name of safety, especially

00:03:28.320 when it comes to rules that are ostensibly implemented for our good, but aren't well explained at all and

00:03:34.800 aren't, as we will talk about, really backed by a whole lot of data. I mean, especially when all of

00:03:41.580 this stuff affects our kids. And that is why we are going to talk about these mask mandates in schools

00:03:47.340 and break all the data down. And it starts with this fateful like of a tweet by singer Carrie

00:03:54.340 Underwood. So Carrie Underwood, she liked the tweet by Matt Walsh, whom we had on, I believe it was last

00:04:01.960 week. So go listen to that episode if you haven't already or watch it on YouTube. She liked a tweet

00:04:07.440 that was a video of Matt Walsh speaking at a school board meeting about kids wearing masks. It's a great

00:04:13.820 video. You should go watch it. He points out that none of the people demanding that children wear masks in

00:04:19.380 schools are actually explaining why factually, scientifically, they should do so. He makes the

00:04:26.560 what's considered probably a pretty scandalous and maybe offensive argument that really the masks are

00:04:32.420 more a security blanket for the adults rather than for actual safety measures for the kids. And like I

00:04:41.660 said, we're going to we're going to look at that argument. We're going to look at some of the facts from

00:04:46.180 around the world that I believe prove that we do not need mask mandates, especially for kids. Now,

00:04:56.580 I know that some of you out there who may adamantly disagree with me may already be really uncomfortable

00:05:03.560 with me saying that. But let's hold on. Hold on to your britches. Make it through the episode. And then

00:05:11.740 if you still disagree with me or you disagree with my interpretation of the data, I would be happy to

00:05:17.700 hear from you and happy to talk to you about that. But first, I want to talk about how things devolved

00:05:24.840 on Twitter because of this, because it was truly absurd. And I've got some nuggets in here about

00:05:29.580 other cultural things that I think that we should be analyzing and taking from this. So someone by the

00:05:36.060 name of Keith Edwards, who, of course, of course, works or has worked for the Lincoln Project and

00:05:42.420 multiple Democrat campaigns, according to his Twitter bio, he posted a screenshot that showed

00:05:47.340 Carrie Underwood's like of that tweet. And his commentary was not this dot dot dot. Well, eventually,

00:05:56.100 a bunch of blue checkmarks and other random Twitter users heard about it and started tweeting about it.

00:06:01.040 And pretty soon there were a whole bunch of people saying how sad they were, how disappointed they

00:06:05.760 were in Carrie Underwood, that they were going to unfollow Carrie Underwood, not going to play her

00:06:09.220 music anymore. And then get this. This is this was so crazy for me to watch. They were calling Carrie

00:06:16.300 Underwood because of liking because she liked a tweet about not forcing kids to wear masks in schools.

00:06:23.120 They called her an anti-vaxxer. So nowhere did she or even Matt Walsh say anything about vaccines.

00:06:30.460 The video was not about vaccines. It wasn't even about masks in general. It was specifically about

00:06:35.820 forcing kids to wear masks in schools. And yet, if you go look at the replies to the tweets on her

00:06:41.400 page, if you go look at some of what some of the blue checkmarks are saying about this,

00:06:45.540 they're calling her an anti-vaxxer. And so this this is such a great lesson that all of us need to

00:06:52.120 learn. Are you ready for this lesson? Because I really think that it's crucial for us to know.

00:06:57.000 The rage mob does not care about the truth. They don't care about the truth. They're not thinking

00:07:01.960 rationally. Like they don't care about how nuanced your take is. It doesn't matter how kind you are,

00:07:07.780 how sweet you are, what your tone is when you're saying what you're saying, or even really the

00:07:12.160 content of what you say or how logical and sound your arguments are. Like if they don't like what you

00:07:18.440 say, they will accuse you of being guilty of the worst possible thing that they can think of.

00:07:23.400 And it will not matter how you defend yourself. It will not matter the facts of what actually

00:07:28.820 you did or what you said. These people, unfortunately, and I'm not just talking about

00:07:34.180 people who just disagree with Carrie Underwood. I'm talking about these people who get whipped 0.99

00:07:38.580 up into a frenzy and whip other people up into a frenzy and direct people to harass and dox and try

00:07:44.020 to cancel someone based on an opinion that they don't like. These people are thoughtless. 0.80

00:07:48.100 They're amoral at best, immoral at worst, creeps who have no life and whose only purpose and joy 0.99

00:07:54.700 is found in trying to cancel other people for deviating from their views. I think that is a 0.98

00:07:59.600 very generous description of people who do things like this. They don't see it that way,

00:08:03.980 though. They see it as holding bigots and science deniers accountable. But of course,

00:08:09.320 that's not true. They're overly sensitive, intolerant, fascist bullies who cannot tolerate a difference 0.99

00:08:14.280 of opinion. And again, I'm not talking about, you know, even the person who originally tweeted 0.98

00:08:19.440 the screenshot or everyone who expressed his agreement with her, whatever. That is totally

00:08:24.380 fine. I'm talking about the people who are calling her an anti-vaxxer and tagging the NFL because she 1.00

00:08:30.480 sings their theme song. So I don't know what they want the NFL to do, denounce her. So they're really

00:08:35.060 trying to get people to harass her and make her regret what she did. It's such a totalitarian and evil

00:08:43.040 and corrupt tendency that people have in these kinds of situations. And Twitter, of course,

00:08:48.940 makes it trend, which just incites more people. Twitter loves to do this. It started out as a few

00:08:54.800 totally random people talking about it, and then it turns into a Twitter moment. The same Twitter

00:09:00.500 who claims to be against harassment and wants to create a so-called healthy platform for productive

00:09:05.660 dialogue, they exacerbate bullying and they allow all kinds of terrible abuse and false narratives to

00:09:11.280 thrive while suspending people for stating facts about human biology, suspending or banning permanently

00:09:17.140 the president of the United States, even while the leaders of the Taliban are on Twitter. My goodness. 0.75

00:09:22.880 So understand, understand this, understand what's going on. Understand that you will never be enough

00:09:29.440 for the cancel month. You will never be nuanced enough. You'll never be woke enough. You'll never be

00:09:34.960 kind enough. Your tone will never be sweet enough for the rage mom. So do not try to please them in 0.94

00:09:43.400 the first place. Don't self-censor or over-explain in the hopes that they won't come for you. They're not

00:09:49.640 thinking logically. So it really doesn't matter how well you can defend yourself. So you've got two

00:09:55.500 options in these scenarios if you find yourself in it. If you are being dragged for something that you

00:10:02.300 don't actually regret, if you're being pressured to renounce something that you still actually believe,

00:10:08.640 you either double down or you ignore it. And that's what I hope that Carrie Underwood does. I hope she

00:10:14.980 either says, hey, yeah, I don't think we should be masking young kids and y'all can get over it. Or she

00:10:21.360 can just totally ignore that it even happened. Because guess what? People will forget. They will move on.

00:10:28.100 They will download and listen to her next song. I can almost guarantee you that. Do you remember,

00:10:33.520 we did a whole episode on it. We'll link it in the description. If you remember taking care of

00:10:37.620 babies, she is a baby sleep trainer, very popular. A lot of people, a lot of celebrities follow her

00:10:44.380 to gently sleep train their babies. She's just a wonderful, sweet person. If you follow her,

00:10:50.360 you know that she's nothing but love and positivity and help and care and compassion.

00:10:54.280 But she and her husband committed the unforgettable, not unforgettable, maybe unforgettable for some

00:11:00.720 people, unforgivable crime of donating somewhere like $1,000 to the Trump campaign over the course

00:11:08.720 of a few years. And people found this out. I think the guy, his name was, well, I don't remember. So I

00:11:16.620 don't want to accidentally throw someone under the bus by using the wrong name. But there was a guy who

00:11:20.380 apparently he reviews like baby products or something on Instagram. He originally posted

00:11:25.000 about this, called for people, quote, holding her accountable. The cancel mom really tried to come 1.00

00:11:29.980 for her. They put her videos, which are behind a paywall. That's how she gets paid up on Reddit for 1.00

00:11:34.860 free to try to hurt her business, try to get everyone to unfollow her. And that was really hard

00:11:39.900 on her. Like it was an intense few days. I saw the things that people were saying about her,

00:11:43.520 people who consider themselves her friends. And what we did in that is that I reached out to her

00:11:50.880 and I encouraged a bunch of you to reach out to her. And I know for a fact that she not only

00:11:56.980 appreciated that, but that actually gave her so much encouragement and buoyed her that she was able

00:12:04.200 to, by the grace of God, not just because of the encouragement that she got from us, she was able to

00:12:10.300 handle this with a whole lot of kindness and a whole lot of confidence. She did not apologize.

00:12:16.520 She made a statement and she just kept doing great work, helping families and their babies get better

00:12:21.940 sleep. And now it's fine. So she was a wonderful example. And as I say, when we see something like

00:12:28.820 this happening, we have to share arrows with the people who are getting unfairly attacked. I'm not

00:12:34.720 talking about people who are suffering consequences for, you know, actual sinful actions for immoral

00:12:41.320 actions. Like I'm not talking about coming to the defense of some, you know, monster like Harvey

00:12:46.440 Weinstein, like that person needs to be canceled because what they did was criminal. It was objectively

00:12:50.860 wrong. Donating to a campaign of the sitting president is not like you might not like it, but it's not

00:13:00.420 morally wrong. Um, and so I think it was really good that we came to her defense, treat, treat those

00:13:06.280 people that are in the line of fire for whatever thing, um, as you would want to be treated. You

00:13:10.980 would want people to come to your defense. You would want people to share arrows. You would want to stick

00:13:14.900 up for her. And this community specifically, the relatable community did. And I know for a fact that

00:13:20.820 it gave her a lot of encouragement and that she was able to stand strong. Um, and she did and things

00:13:27.600 are okay. Like she's still, um, she's still doing such a good job and serving so many families. Now 0.54

00:13:33.420 there's another story. There was another baby products company. This happened around the same

00:13:38.100 time. This was after, after the George Floyd incident last summer, like people were so social

00:13:45.620 justice warriors were so excited to try to guilt and to cancel specifically. It seemed like white 1.00

00:13:53.000 female social media influencers for not being sensitive enough, for not being enough of an 1.00

00:13:58.760 activist, for not doing and saying all the right things. And so you saw a lot of these different

00:14:03.680 kinds of scenarios and a lot of people, um, you know, there were a variety of reactions to this.

00:14:09.300 And so Solly baby is a company that makes baby wearing wraps and they made one wrap that they were going

00:14:15.740 to get patented. Um, great. Except apparently this is off limits because baby wearing was according to

00:14:23.040 the people who came for the founder of this company, started by African women and women in other 0.99

00:14:27.580 cultures. And I guess was only, they, they claim was only learned by white women, which I, I don't even

00:14:33.980 know if that's actually true. If you go back hundreds of years and you look at all the different kinds of

00:14:38.640 cultures that baby wore, I'm sure there were all different kinds of people with all different kinds of

00:14:42.880 melanin count, um, in their skin that have used fabric to carry their babies. But apparently

00:14:49.280 because this was a white woman who started Solly baby, it was wrong of her to try to patent this 0.98

00:14:54.300 particular, uh, this particular wrap. So, and this woman, she created this particular wrap and the

00:15:01.260 particular fabric. Um, and so she wanted to patent that, but again, the social justice, anti-racist,

00:15:08.500 so-called, uh, rage mob came, lambasted her, and she ended up posting multiple apologies,

00:15:15.660 multiple apologies because the first one wasn't good enough. All the comment section was filled

00:15:20.660 with people telling her how her apology was bad, how it centered, you know, her white woman feelings

00:15:25.680 and how, uh, she needed to do more and say more and do something differently. And so she did, she bent

00:15:32.000 over backwards to please the people who were after her. And I'm sure she was sincere. Like, I don't think

00:15:37.360 that she is, um, I'm not trying to throw her under the bus from this direction either. Um, I'm just

00:15:44.140 saying that her probably very sincere efforts did not matter. Um, and you could tell that this was

00:15:50.620 really, that this really took a big emotional toll on her and maybe everything is fine now. I hope her

00:15:56.820 business is doing well, but the latter situation was drawn out and caused a lot more pain because of

00:16:05.420 the assumption that I guess she had that social media bullies can actually be appeased, that they

00:16:11.780 can be satisfied by anything other than total and complete self-loathing and groveling and

00:16:17.260 capitulation. I think honestly, they probably only would have been satisfied if she had just shut down

00:16:22.640 her business altogether and decided she wasn't going to make baby wraps anymore. And then even that

00:16:27.620 probably wouldn't have been sufficient. So learn a lesson from all of this. Apologize when you know

00:16:34.480 that you have sinned, when you know that you are legitimately in the wrong, but do not do it for the

00:16:39.640 mob no matter what, even if you are legitimately, uh, legitimately in the wrong, do it to obey God,

00:16:45.100 but do not apologize. Do not acquiesce. Don't give in a single centimeter. Don't even defend yourself

00:16:53.160 when you are being wrongly dragged for something that you said that you truly do believe or something

00:16:58.820 that you did that you know is right. Um, and as I said on Twitter, this stance that kids should not

00:17:06.940 be forced to mask is backed by the data. So there is absolutely no reason for anyone, including Carrie

00:17:13.420 Underwood to apologize for saying that. So we're going to get into all of that data. As some of you have

00:17:19.980 already read in a blog post, um, I am going to articulate it again for you now.

00:17:30.220 All right. So like I said, I already wrote a post about this. It's been out for about a week now.

00:17:34.780 Ton of you guys have been sharing it. Thank you for that. It's been helpful because I've been asked

00:17:39.140 by so many people who want to talk to your school boards. Um, Hey, what do I say? Like, how do I,

00:17:46.200 how do I try to convince people that it's, um, not scientific to force kids to wear masks

00:17:51.680 in schools? And so I decided it took me a few days to compile all the studies from peer reviewed

00:17:57.400 scientific journals, data from the New York times and our world and statistics. And by the way,

00:18:02.340 there are a lot of other people that I drew from and that I credit in this, um, in this post who have

00:18:07.920 been working on this for a long time. I'm certainly not the first person or the only person to compile

00:18:12.460 these kinds of things. Um, I will include a link to that post in the description of today's episode.

00:18:19.200 So if you're wondering, what are the citations? Can I, can I read these? Can I look at the data

00:18:24.200 myself? Uh, yes, you absolutely can. I have cited everything, everything in my, um, in my post. I

00:18:32.900 posted this on Twitter and of course you had crazy people saying, Oh, you're just citing, you're just

00:18:37.460 citing yourself. You're citing yourself. This, this doesn't count. No, I'm not citing myself. I just

00:18:42.320 happened to compile all this data, uh, cited from these peer reviewed studies and from these medical

00:18:48.340 journals. Um, I just happened to compile it on my own website. So, um, I'm going to read you some of

00:18:55.580 this, uh, some of this data now. Um, so if it weren't for governor Abbott banning mask mandates

00:19:02.220 in Texas and, uh, Rhonda Santa's doing the same thing, uh, in Florida as well. But if governor Abbott 0.99

00:19:09.620 hadn't done that in Texas, Dallas County would have required children as young as two years

00:19:13.360 old, two years old guys, that's a baby. That is a baby. Uh, we'll be, they would have been required

00:19:20.160 to wear masks in commercial entities. And that's not just true in Dallas. Uh, that's true in many

00:19:26.040 places in the United States and on commercial flights. That's why it's so important by the way,

00:19:29.760 for these red governors and red lawmakers to stand up and say, no, you're not going to do this, 0.77

00:19:35.380 uh, because it violates individual liberty, but also because it's scientifically absurd from

00:19:41.040 everything that I have read from the world's leading researchers. The science shows, here's my

00:19:47.740 summary. The science shows that there are certain situations in which certain masks worn a certain

00:19:55.680 way by certain people may, may be effective at preventing the spread of COVID. But even

00:20:05.240 that is debatable. Personally, I think the risks far outweigh the benefits of masking kids. But

00:20:11.560 like I say, I will present you with the data and you can decide for yourself first. So let's get some

00:20:17.420 context. Let's look, uh, let's talk about this Delta Delta variant, which, um, has sent everyone

00:20:23.100 into a tizzy and kind of for a good reason, but also kind of not for a good reason. Um, the Delta

00:20:29.240 variant is causing a spike in cases. It is causing a spike in cases. There is also apparently an

00:20:35.980 increase in hospitalizations too, but we're still nowhere near where we were at our peak in January,

00:20:41.580 as far as deaths go. Now, vaccines could get the credit for this, of course, and, or it could be

00:20:48.040 that the strain isn't actually quite as deadly as the original. And as we'll get to more later, the,

00:20:53.240 uh, uh, American Academy of Pediatrics found that pediatric hospitalization numbers are being

00:20:59.440 inflated because of the CDC's requirement for testing. Plus if Delta goes the way, uh, it's gone

00:21:06.840 in other countries, um, the gone in other countries that it's passed through, it is going to spike and

00:21:12.740 then it is going to steeply drop off. And this is going to happen for every kind of variant that we

00:21:17.180 have. So if we look at data from India, where Delta actually originated, and we look at data from the

00:21:22.700 Netherlands and the UK, it, um, and we look at the data compiled by the New York times, it shows a

00:21:28.900 spike in cases due to Delta and then a sharp increase. So if you're watching on YouTube, I will,

00:21:35.300 I'll put this up. So right now you're seeing that Delta rose and fell in India. Now what's interesting

00:21:42.260 is that mass compliance in India has always remained low. About 32%, um, is what is reported by the

00:21:50.680 Times of India? Um, of course that is, um, you know, that's a self-reporting survey. So people are

00:21:58.300 saying, do you wear a mask? Do you not wear a mask? Only 32% in India say that they do wear a mask and

00:22:04.920 yet Delta rose and fell seemingly regardless of that. If you look at the Netherlands where, uh, Delta, uh,

00:22:11.200 also swept through Delta rose and fell. The country though actually ditched masks in most places on June 26th.

00:22:18.880 But if you look at the graph that's up right now, you'll see that the peak of the, of the Delta

00:22:24.360 variant, uh, was on July 21st and it still fell. So they didn't have masks. Um, starting on June 26th,

00:22:33.880 the Delta came around July and then it dropped off and, uh, they only require masks in some places

00:22:42.540 for people 13 and over. Um, and then if you look in the UK where mass compliance is much higher

00:22:49.100 and there are a lot more people wearing masks than in the Netherlands and in India, um, it, it rose and

00:22:57.020 fell in the UK. Now they are not required. The masks now though are not required in England. They're

00:23:02.660 enforced in some places in Wales. Uh, they are not required in Northern Ireland for worshipers or

00:23:09.800 students in classrooms. The UK has made a lot of different decisions on kids wearing masks than

00:23:16.660 the United States has. So all this to say Delta is going to do the same thing in the United States

00:23:21.960 that it has in other countries spike than fall, regardless of universal masking. That's what we

00:23:27.960 see from the other places where, uh, Delta has come through. We just really don't have a lot of

00:23:34.020 evidence of masks of mask mandates staving off the virus. In late October, 2020, 93 of adults in the

00:23:41.540 United States reported that they sometimes often or always wear masks when they leave their home.

00:23:47.160 72% said that they always do. And if anyone is saying, Oh, you know, that's not good enough.

00:23:53.060 Other countries are doing better. That puts us right on par with Germany and ahead of most other European

00:23:58.340 countries like mass compliance in the United States comparatively is very high. And yet the data from

00:24:04.780 the New York times shows that the end of October marks the beginning of the biggest spike in COVID

00:24:09.220 cases. And so the vast majority of adults in the United States reported in October of 2020,

00:24:14.280 that they, that, uh, they wore masks and the vast majority say that they always wear masks when they go

00:24:20.080 outside of their home. And yet, when you look at the New York times data that they compile, that you're

00:24:25.040 looking at, if you're watching on YouTube, you will see that the end of October, when everyone is

00:24:29.300 wearing a mask, that the cases go up, up, up, up, up. Now, could you maybe argue that, um, oh, the cases

00:24:36.340 would be way worse if people weren't wearing masks? Maybe you could argue that, but that would be a guess.

00:24:41.640 We don't know that for sure. And especially if you look at the fact that Sweden never mandated masks,

00:24:47.500 um, in January, um, in January of 2021, only 12% of Swedes said that they wore a mask all the time with 59%

00:24:55.820 saying never. So the vast majority of Swedes have never worn masks and they have not fared any worse than we

00:25:02.920 have. Their death rate is lower than some other European countries like those in the UK who have had mask

00:25:08.320 mandates, uh, in the past. So you'll see the graph of, uh, Sweden's new cases and you'll see, um, that really,

00:25:17.240 by population, you know, per capita, they're really not faring than worse than most countries. And we

00:25:24.280 can also compare Sweden to a U S state with a similar population size, because I understand the

00:25:28.380 argument that says, well, we can't compare Sweden to the United States population is totally different.

00:25:32.680 Okay. So the population size of Sweden and the population size of Michigan are very similar.

00:25:38.600 Michigan implemented their mask made mandate in March of 2020. Um, and while Sweden has had slightly

00:25:44.620 more cases than Michigan, 1.1 million versus 1.02 million, uh, Sweden has had far fewer deaths

00:25:52.360 than Michigan, 14,658 versus 21,243. Those numbers might just be a tiny bit different since I actually

00:26:02.240 wrote this last week. But so we see that Michigan has been wearing masks from the beginning of the

00:26:08.540 pandemic. Sweden has never worn masks. The deaths are right about this, or they're, they're not about

00:26:14.480 the same. The cases are right about the same. And then the deaths are actually much better in

00:26:18.700 Sweden. Um, you know, on Weiss, a reporter at the federalist, he graphed all these things out.

00:26:24.580 He graphed COVID case stats from our world and data of European countries, as well as states in

00:26:30.200 the United States. And he pinpointed when each national and state government implemented mask

00:26:36.060 mandates. And what he found was that mask mandates seem to have no effect on the spread of the

00:26:41.220 virus. You can go to that article. It's linked in my, um, article and I'll give you, I'll give you

00:26:47.400 one example right now. Um, and that example would be Israel. So Israel reinstated its mask mandate 0.74

00:26:54.320 on June 25th. Israel has been, um, has had a very unprecedented rollout of the vaccine. They've got

00:27:02.640 vaccine passports. They've been very restrictive on this kind of thing. And they are also seeing a

00:27:08.060 spike right now from, um, the Delta variant. And so they decided on June 25th, that they were going

00:27:14.380 to reinstate, um, the mask mandate. And so, uh, you can see that right now on YouTube. And what you'll

00:27:23.220 see is that the cases have risen in a similar fashion as other countries like the Netherlands,

00:27:27.840 which actually did the exact opposite. They ditched their mask mandate right before the rise in Delta

00:27:33.180 cases. And we're seeing the same rate of increase in both countries. Um, like we said, Sweden never

00:27:40.260 mandated masks. They've even created a stigma around masks or, um, and they did not lock down.

00:27:47.240 Their death rate is much lower than some other European countries that have mandated them. Like we

00:27:53.240 said, uh, like countries in the UK. I also, I'm going to include a link to this quiz that I saw someone

00:28:00.660 share on Twitter and it's called the COVID charts quiz. And it compares, uh, two States in the United

00:28:07.760 States, um, their, their COVID deaths. So they map them out and it doesn't tell you which line is

00:28:14.720 which state. And so one of the questions will be, uh, one of these neighboring States had a statewide

00:28:19.600 mask mandate until February, 2021. The other never had a statewide mask mandate. Uh, which state had the

00:28:25.860 mandate, click the line to select, then click show answer. And I'll put this up on, on the YouTube

00:28:31.680 screen as well. So you can see it. Um, and what you find when you go through all these questions is

00:28:36.420 that they're almost, they're indistinguishable. Like just by looking at the death rate of these, um,

00:28:43.000 of these States who had these disparate, uh, disparate mandates, you can't see which States, uh,

00:28:50.040 did what? And so really the conclusion is that we don't have evidence that these mask mandates,

00:28:57.480 we don't have very much a good evidence that these mask mandates have really done anything to stave

00:29:02.780 off the virus. Now there are other studies looking at some States and some countries that do show that

00:29:10.820 cases began to decrease after a mask mandate, but I believe that is coincidence, not causation.

00:29:17.920 Now, why do I believe that? And this is also in response to someone saying, oh, well, it could

00:29:24.120 have been a lot worse if this particular country or state, uh, didn't have a mask mandate. So that

00:29:30.080 doesn't prove anything. Well, there have been many studies, many studies, uh, that have already been

00:29:37.140 done on the effectiveness of masks at stopping the transmission of disease.

00:29:42.120 So the reason why mask mandates aren't proven to do much is because masks aren't really proven to do

00:29:54.700 much. I know that's scandalous to say. So, like I said, several studies demonstrate this. The Center

00:29:59.920 for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University points out that research on the efficacy of masks

00:30:05.000 to prevent the spread of COVID is weak. Quote, in 2010, at the end of the last influenza pandemic,

00:30:11.020 there were six published randomized control trials with 4,147 participants focusing on the benefits

00:30:17.600 of different types of masks. Uh, two were done in healthcare workers in foreign family or student

00:30:22.620 clusters. The face mask trials for influenza-like illness, ILI, reported poor compliance, rarely

00:30:29.280 reported harms, and revealed the pressing need for future trials. So basically they're kind of saying

00:30:34.440 it's inconclusive, but here's what they found. Despite the clear requirement to carry out further

00:30:38.960 large pragmatic trials a decade later, only six had been published, five in healthcare workers and

00:30:44.400 one in pilgrims. This recent crop of trials added 9,112 participants to the total randomized

00:30:52.740 denominator of 13,259 and showed that masks alone have no significant effect in interrupting the spread

00:31:01.100 of influenza-like illness or influenza in the general population, nor in healthcare workers.

00:31:06.920 And so they realized, okay, we need more trials after they did the first trials back in 2010. So

00:31:12.080 they did more trials, adding more people. And what they found is that masks alone have no significant

00:31:16.660 effect whatsoever in interrupting the spread of these kinds of illnesses. It would appear that despite

00:31:22.420 two decades of pandemic preparedness, there's considerable uncertainty as to the value of wearing masks.

00:31:30.020 And then it goes on to talk about how we are placing these restrictions, but we don't actually know how

00:31:38.720 effective they are. It goes on to say, Norway's Institute for Public Health reported that if masks

00:31:44.440 did work, then any difference in infection rates would be small when infection rates are low. Assuming 20%

00:31:50.620 asymptomatics and a risk reduction of 40% for wearing masks, 200,000 people would need to wear one to

00:31:56.920 prevent one new infection per week. And that's just, that's just not the case anywhere. The New England

00:32:03.900 Journal of Medicine concluded this in May 2020. We know that wearing a mask outside healthcare facilities

00:32:10.100 offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to

00:32:16.300 COVID-19 as face-to-face contact within six feet with a patient with symptomatic COVID-19 that is sustained for

00:32:22.540 at least a few minutes. The chance of catching COVID-19 from a passing interaction in a public

00:32:27.160 space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction

00:32:33.180 to anxiety over the pandemic. Now you might say, okay, that was in 2020. We've learned, we've learned

00:32:38.100 more. What do we learn? Can you tell me? The CDC hasn't articulated how the science is different from

00:32:44.000 what the New England Journal of Medicine concluded in May of 2020. Like it is still nearly impossible to get

00:32:50.440 COVID from randomly passing someone. And so the people who are wearing their masks on the beach

00:32:55.080 or outside, it just doesn't follow the science. Like the New England Journal of Medicine said,

00:33:00.360 the science is still the same. The desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to

00:33:05.100 anxiety over the pandemic. A randomized controlled trial in Japan testing for the effectiveness of

00:33:11.020 surgical masks and reducing the incidence of the common cold found, quote, face mask use in healthcare

00:33:16.260 workers has not been demonstrated to provide benefit in terms of cold symptoms of getting or getting

00:33:21.940 colds. A larger study is needed to definitively establish non-inferiority of no mask use. A 2010

00:33:28.200 study by Cambridge University found, quote, while there is some experimental evidence that masks should

00:33:34.080 be able to reduce infectiousness under controlled conditions, should be able to reduce. Really, that's what

00:33:41.080 we're running on here. And just to kind of insert my own commentary, because I've seen so many people

00:33:45.820 post as they're sourcing that masks work, recommendations for masks by the Mayo Clinic or

00:33:51.140 from American Academy of Pediatrics. That's not proof. That's not a study. Just because a medical or

00:33:57.080 so-called scientific entity recommends a mask is not data or scientific proof that the mask works. And so

00:34:06.700 while there are experimental evidence, is some experimental evidence, Cambridge University says

00:34:14.020 that masks should be able to reduce infectiousness under controlled conditions, they go on to say there is

00:34:19.660 less evidence on whether this translates to effectiveness in natural settings. So theoretically, it should

00:34:25.420 work, but there isn't a whole lot of evidence to prove that they actually do. They go on to say there is

00:34:31.580 little evidence to support the effectiveness of face masks to reduce the risk of infection. A study

00:34:38.320 from Oxford Clinical Infectious Diseases found that, quote, single-use medical masks are preferable to

00:34:44.420 cloth masks for which there is no evidence of protection and which, get this, might facilitate

00:34:51.320 transmission of pathogens when used repeatedly without adequate sterilization. Interesting. So sitting in a

00:34:58.140 cloth mask all day without sterilization could transmit pathogens or organisms that transmit

00:35:03.820 diseases. What does that sound like? Are you saying that kids are sitting in the sterile,

00:35:10.020 changed periodically in 95 masks all day at school? No, of course not. A Danish randomized 0.90

00:35:17.940 control trial with 6,000 participants, you'll probably remember when this came out, published in November of

00:35:24.940 2020, found no statistically significant effect of high-quality medical face masks against SARS-CoV-2

00:35:33.120 infection in a community setting. Now, other countries get this, apparently, and it's reflected in their

00:35:41.400 policies, but we apparently, we don't get it because everything is political in the United States, so it just

00:35:46.900 makes everything toxic and we can't actually have any logical scientific conversations about any of this 0.99

00:35:52.820 because it's become a symbol of who you voted for, which is so silly, so dumb, and so damaging. 0.97

00:35:58.980 Even UNICEF, which is pro-mask in general, and I would add they seem not to follow some of the 0.97

00:36:04.060 science that we've just talked about by they recommend cotton masks, but really they're talking to people

00:36:08.800 who don't have any other option and might be crammed together, and so they're in a situation where maybe

00:36:14.900 it would provide some protection from the spread of COVID, but they even strongly advise against kids

00:36:24.160 under the age of five wearing masks, and they recommend mask wearing for kids ages six to 11 only

00:36:30.560 in certain settings. So this is in direct opposition to airlines in some city governments mandating masks

00:36:38.780 for children as young as two years old, so UNICEF even disagrees with that, even being the pro-mask 0.54

00:36:43.980 entity that they are. The UK, as we noted before, removed face mask requirements for students in May.

00:36:51.640 Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said this, removing face masks will hugely improve interactions

00:36:57.660 between teachers and students, while all other school safety measures will remain in place to help keep

00:37:03.060 the virus out of classrooms. A Swedish student, this was crazy, he was kicked out of a class for refusing

00:37:09.360 to take off his mask. This was reported, you can just search this, that this kid, he wanted to wear

00:37:15.600 a mask. I guess his parent wanted him to wear a mask. I think his parent was actually like an American

00:37:21.280 because I'm pretty sure this was an international school and he wanted to wear a mask, and he was sent

00:37:25.460 home because it was causing distress among other students. This kid wearing a mask could not be more

00:37:31.280 different here. And as noted above as well, the Netherlands only urges mask wearing for people

00:37:36.680 13 and over, so there's no expectation, there's no urging whatsoever for kids under the age of 13

00:37:42.620 to wear masks. Also, keep in mind, people seem to forget this, that mask wearing has been a prevalent

00:37:49.800 trend in Asia, China specifically, for years. And that obviously did not stop the virus from originating

00:37:55.760 there and spreading like wildfire there. And maybe it's also worth noting that many people or that

00:38:01.740 many of the same people mandating and advocating for these rules are not always following them

00:38:08.260 themselves. We've got examples from Lori Lightfoot, Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Barack Obama,

00:38:13.660 Muriel Bowser, Nancy Pelosi, just to name a few. So that's just something to consider. Even if masks were

00:38:19.400 proven to be super effective, kids have a very, very, very small chance of getting anything close

00:38:27.120 to a severe case of COVID. I know if you're reading the headlines right now, you would think differently,

00:38:31.820 but it's still true. And actually, the American Academy of Pediatrics, which I have found, which all

00:38:37.040 of us have found to be very political sometimes, and their statements and recommendations, especially

00:38:41.860 when it comes to things like gender identity and toddlers and little kids, they did find that

00:38:48.800 pediatric, and they published this, that pediatric hospitalization of kids because of, key phrase,

00:38:56.460 because of COVID is extremely rare. So a recent study that they put out found that some hospitals

00:39:02.520 are reporting children admitted to the hospital with COVID symptoms or who tested positive for COVID,

00:39:09.060 but who were not admitted because of COVID. So this is what the study says. Children have suffered

00:39:15.320 tremendously due to policies that have kept schools and recreational facilities closed to them,

00:39:20.900 and the burden has been greatest on children who are low-income and English-language learners.

00:39:29.260 Scientific and media reports that inaccurately portray the risk of COVID-19 to children can do harm

00:39:35.560 by alarming parents and providing justification for ongoing restrictions to in-person education and

00:39:41.740 other programming, i.e. summer camps. Kushner et al. and Webb et al. have contributed greatly to the field

00:39:48.980 by careful work to understand the true burden of COVID-19 disease among children. Via these studies,

00:39:56.940 parents and policymakers should be reassured that pediatric hospitalization for severe COVID-19

00:40:03.400 disease is rare. And so every kid who is being admitted to the hospital is being tested for COVID.

00:40:11.740 And in many hospitals, that is being reported as the reason why they are in the ICU or in the hospital.

00:40:19.380 But in many cases, this study found it's actually just incidental. So it's actually just a coincidence

00:40:25.660 that they have COVID, and that's not why they're there. They could be there for something totally

00:40:29.640 different, for some other fatal disease or illness or RSV. There is a huge RSV breakout across the

00:40:37.780 country, especially in North Texas, where you're seeing a lot of the media reports coming out saying

00:40:42.920 pediatric ICU beds are full as COVID cases rise. You see how clever that wording is, that they're

00:40:49.240 not actually saying it's because of COVID. They're saying COVID cases are rising, pediatric ICU beds

00:40:54.640 are filling, but it's not actually because of COVID, if you look at the numbers. Not for these kids.

00:40:59.420 It's because mostly, not entirely, there are some kids with COVID. There are some kids who will go to

00:41:04.180 the hospital because of COVID. But it's very, very, very, very rare. It's mostly because of RSV.

00:41:10.840 RSV is a respiratory virus, as we've talked about several times on this podcast, that is very serious,

00:41:16.120 especially for babies under six months, much more serious than COVID is for babies under six months.

00:41:20.920 And it is roaring right now. And people are theorizing, pediatricians, nurses, medical experts,

00:41:27.060 not me are theorizing. It's because it wasn't able to cycle as it typically does in the winter months

00:41:33.440 because people were locked down. People, you know, people were trying to protect themselves from

00:41:39.920 COVID. And so they basically just shut down their immune systems for several months. And now it's

00:41:44.440 coming back with a vengeance and people's immune systems just are not prepared to be able to handle

00:41:48.960 it how they typically are. And so you've got a lot of pediatric cases of RSV, maybe worse than in

00:41:55.660 several years. And a lot of kids going to the hospital for it. But the media don't really care

00:41:59.920 because it's not COVID, which is crazy. As we talk about so many times, there are so many different

00:42:05.060 things, so many different threats that can kill you, so many different kinds of harm that our

00:42:09.980 compassion should cover, like that also demands our attention. But again, because things are so

00:42:16.700 politicized in the United States, we're not even able to, we're not even able to acknowledge that

00:42:21.680 there's also hand, foot and mouth disease, which is not, it doesn't put kids in the ICU. But that

00:42:27.240 very seriously is going around right now. Because again, people are out and about, they're congregating,

00:42:31.880 kids are going back to daycare, going back to Sunday school, going back to school, some in some

00:42:35.900 areas for the first time. And so there are a lot of things that are putting people in the hospital

00:42:40.300 that aren't actually COVID. But if the media, again, can whip you up that, okay, COVID cases are rising

00:42:47.580 over here. And also hospitals are full. They don't have to tell you why the hospitals are full.

00:42:52.640 In a lot of cases, also the hospitals are full because they are short-staffed. That's something

00:42:57.400 they don't want to talk about, that the lockdowns actually decreased the need for general hospitalizations.

00:43:07.500 And so in a lot of cases, some hospitals were less busy. Now, I know some hospitals were more busy

00:43:13.380 than ever before. A lot of hospitals were less busy than ever before. And so there were a lot of

00:43:18.260 staffers that were laid off in hospitals. And also, there are a lot of nurses who didn't want to take 1.00

00:43:23.580 the vaccine. And so rather than following the vaccine mandate that has been implemented in a lot of

00:43:30.120 these hospitals, some nurses quit. And so many hospitals are short-staffed right now. Some nurses are just

00:43:36.260 quitting because they don't want to do bedside anymore because it's just a really hard job. And also, here's

00:43:41.900 another thing. Hospital administrations, they run hospitals like businesses. They still want to make

00:43:46.960 money. And so they are going to try to keep their hospitals at capacity. So there are so many other

00:43:52.900 factors that are going into this. And the media, as usual, is being very irresponsible. Now, am I saying

00:43:59.500 that that means that we should not care about COVID or that no kids get COVID, that it's not a threat to

00:44:03.980 anyone at all? I'm not saying that. I'm saying that we have to be very careful about which narratives we

00:44:09.220 latch on to. Dr. Roshni Matthew is a Stanford School of Medicine pediatric infectious disease

00:44:15.040 specialist. She told NPR, quote, for children in particular, the risk of serious consequences from COVID-19

00:44:21.360 is the same magnitude as the risk they face from the flu, she says. But many parents seem more worried about

00:44:28.260 the new and less familiar disease that heightened anxiety by the new guidelines or that anxiety is heightened

00:44:35.380 by the new guidelines on mask wearing. But experts urge parents to try not to worry too much. Now, if we

00:44:43.060 are to take the CDC's numbers at face value, and there may be a reason or two not to, but if we are,

00:44:50.420 416 children have reportedly died with COVID. That's their phraseology, with COVID. Again, important,

00:44:58.320 not necessarily from COVID, but with COVID. Out of 74 million children in the United States,

00:45:04.320 and most, it seems, had underlying conditions. I linked proof of that, or I linked what seems to

00:45:10.020 be proof of that in the article that is linked in the description of this episode. So these facts,

00:45:16.740 taken with the AAP's warning that previously noted, or that we previously noted about inflated

00:45:23.100 pediatric hospitalization numbers, lets us know that there's almost a 0% chance of healthy kids dying

00:45:29.240 from this virus. And while every single life absolutely matters, no matter the age, it is

00:45:34.840 important to have some perspective. So in the 2017 to 2018 flu season, it was a really bad flu season.

00:45:41.080 You might remember, I actually, well, I guess that would have been the 2018-2019 flu season. I actually

00:45:47.480 know someone, a young, healthy person who died of the flu in 2018. But the 2017 to 2018 flu season

00:45:54.360 was a really bad flu season. The CDC estimates that 643 children, 17 and under, died of the flu.

00:46:01.680 Quote, deaths in children with laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infection are reportable in the

00:46:07.540 United States, and 183 deaths were reported for the 2017 to 2018 season. However, influenza-associated

00:46:16.540 pediatric deaths are likely underreported, as not all children whose death was related to an

00:46:22.460 influenza virus infection may have been tested for influenza. Therefore, we use the mathematical

00:46:27.720 model to estimate the total number of pediatric deaths based on hospitalization rates and the

00:46:33.120 frequency of death in and out of the hospital from death certificates, estimating that there were

00:46:39.300 more than 640 deaths associated with influenza in children. So keep in mind, too, that flu seasons are

00:46:46.760 about 6 months. We've had COVID for over a year and a half. So far more children died of slash with the

00:46:53.540 flu in 6 months a few years ago than have died of slash with COVID in the last 18-plus months.

00:47:00.680 There were 11 million kids who tested positive for the flu in 2017 and the 2017 to 2018 season.

00:47:07.020 There have been 4 million children who have tested positive for COVID so far. Now, did anyone suggest

00:47:11.800 shutting down schools or wearing masks in 2018? Why not? Because, well, one, as we already cited,

00:47:19.040 the study that shows that masks really aren't effective in stopping the spread of influenza-like

00:47:23.720 illnesses, but also, until COVID, we understood the importance of kids receiving in-person instruction

00:47:29.620 unencumbered by plexiglass and pathogen-laden face cloths. The only thing that has changed, at least

00:47:35.900 when it comes to talking about this age group, is politics. As Matt Walsh said in his speech before

00:47:42.600 a school board in Nashville, the masks are really more about security for the teachers,

00:47:47.420 security for the school board and the administration, not for the kids. Because even if kids do get it,

00:47:53.140 they are very unlikely to pass to teachers who, by the way, can get vaccinated if they want to.

00:47:59.940 And if they're not vaccinated, they've probably already calculated the risk and are okay with their

00:48:04.400 chances of surviving COVID. Studies in Sweden, France, Wales, and China, again, which we are linking,

00:48:11.980 show that transmission from a child to an adult, mask or not, is extremely rare. Dr. Raska said in the

00:48:20.240 article that we are linking, the data are striking. The key takeaway is that children are not driving the

00:48:27.200 pandemic. After six months, we have a wealth of accumulating data showing that children are less

00:48:32.580 likely to become infected and seem less infectious. It is congregating adults who aren't following

00:48:38.280 safety protocols, who are responsible for driving the upward curve. The risk of mask wearing for kids

00:48:44.520 simply outweighs the benefits. Dr. Marty Makari, he is a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg

00:48:51.420 School of Public Health. He wrote about the adverse effects of masks on kids for the Wall Street Journal.

00:48:59.280 So he says, in March, Ireland's Department of Health announced that it won't require masks in

00:49:05.020 schools because it may exacerbate anxiety or breathing difficulties. And the doctor agrees.

00:49:10.260 He said chronic and prolonged mouth breathing, which is sometimes what happens when kids are wearing masks,

00:49:15.300 it can alter your facial development. And it also, it says that because adenoids block their nasal

00:49:22.420 airways, it can develop a mouth deformity and elongated face. And there's also possible psychological

00:49:28.780 harm of widespread masking, he says. He says facial expressions are integral to human connection.

00:49:36.060 Now, what's interesting is that the American Academy of Pediatrics put out a tweet thread saying

00:49:41.620 babies and young children study faces. So you may worry that having masked caregivers would harm

00:49:46.800 children's language development. There are no studies to support this concern. I saw a reply that was like,

00:49:52.580 if you don't study it, there can't be any studies. There can't be any studies supporting it. So their

00:49:58.540 first sentence actually contradicts the next sentence. So we know that babies and young children study

00:50:03.200 faces, that it's important for communication. It's important for them to pick up social cues.

00:50:07.340 It's important for them to be able to see the articulation of words, especially when you're still

00:50:11.120 learning to talk and learning in class and learning new words and all of that, especially for kids who

00:50:18.040 are hard of hearing. And yet the American Academy of Pediatrics says, oh, there's no studies showing

00:50:22.900 that that's going to, it's going to harm them at all when it comes to communication and development

00:50:27.940 by covering their mouth. So the doctor in the Wall Street Journal also says seeing people speak is a

00:50:34.340 building block of phonetic development. I don't even think that we have scratched the surface

00:50:38.600 when it comes to the developmental and psychological issues that we are strapping onto kids by strapping

00:50:46.120 a mask onto their face. And so all of this has to be considered. We can't just say, okay, well,

00:50:53.640 we're going to believe whatever, you know, whatever this bureaucratic body, we actually have to look

00:50:59.140 at the scientific studies that have already been done for more than a decade when it comes to this

00:51:05.740 particular subject. And there just really isn't data supporting that young kids need to be mandated

00:51:12.960 wearing masks. Now, I think that there's not a whole lot of data supporting that people in general

00:51:17.580 need to be mandated wearing masks. But again, I'm more concerned. I'm more concerned with the kids and

00:51:23.340 their ability to be able to learn well and function well and communicate well. That's going to have

00:51:27.260 long-lasting, long-lasting repercussions. So to summarize all of this, kids are at an extremely

00:51:44.340 low risk of severe COVID illness. They are not driving the spread of COVID to adults. Plus, everyone 12 and

00:51:52.240 over has had the opportunity to get vaccinated. If the vaccines work, then everyone who has taken it

00:51:57.700 is protected. And everyone who has not chosen to take the vaccine has already accepted whatever risks

00:52:04.300 that choice may or may not pose. There is therefore no reason to treat kids as if they are a threat to

00:52:10.820 public health. Furthermore, there is no solid evidence to prove that masking kids is an effective

00:52:15.500 strategy in mitigating COVID. And in fact, as we have noted today, there's plenty of evidence to the

00:52:20.940 contrary. Parents can protect their kids as they see fit. As we say many times, the state does not

00:52:27.500 care about your children. They also don't own your children. But kids should not be forced to wear

00:52:32.340 masks. If we are going to hashtag follow the science, that means following the science, even when it

00:52:37.060 contradicts popular narratives. So gather with people who agree with you. Try to get more people in

00:52:44.120 your organization or in your school district to be concerned about this. Raise a respectful and factual

00:52:50.620 ruckus about this. Come together. Craft a message. Push back on this where you are. Try to influence

00:52:57.360 in a God-glorifying and strong, unapologetic way the spheres in which God has placed you, the spheres

00:53:04.760 that you occupy. And you can do it with a wealth of knowledge and data. So do that and then report back

00:53:11.080 to me and let me know how it goes. All right. I will see you guys back here tomorrow with a big episode

00:53:16.180 that you will not want to miss.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 18, 2021

Ep 473 ｜ Carrie Underwood Gets It： Masks Don't Belong in Schools (with Data)

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