Last time CBS News took a run at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, it didn't turn out well for "60 Minutes" – which rightly got brutalized for its cartoonishly sloppy and biased reporting. This time, the network's morning show is taking a more indirect approach to criticizing DeSantis, allowing the family of an immuno-compromised child to front the critique. The premise of this whole segment is that by barring Florida school districts from requiring masks for all students, DeSantis is endangering their daughter, along with all the other kids. Watch:
This nine-year-old can't return to school — she's immunocompromised, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has blocked masked mandates.
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) October 7, 2021
“Schools should be safe for all of the population, not just the people that believe in the governor at the time,” her mother told @OmarVillafranca. pic.twitter.com/5HtCtdN5mm
A few thoughts: First, Reefy Kinder is an extraordinary girl who has been through a lot – including undergoing more than 30 surgeries – during her nine years on earth. That takes a lot of courage and resilience, and we wish her the very best in life. Second, it must be extremely taxing on parents to have a child endure such hardship, and it's entirely rational and reasonable for a family to want to be extra vigilant about the health and safety of a vulnerable loved one, especially during a pandemic. Their concerns are fully understandable. However, the calculation of risk around immuno-compromised children should not necessarily dictate a one-size-fits-all policy imposed on every kid in a school district or state. Under the Florida policy, school districts are not allowed to force all students to mask up, but masks are by no means banned. Any parent who wishes to place a mask on their child while in the classroom has every right to do so. Districts are even allowed to require masks generally, so long as parents have an opt-out available to them. Some medical experts believe that masking young children for hours on end can be deleterious to their physical health, mental health, and overall development. If a family and their physician decide that a first-grader, for instance, would be better served without a mask on, why should their wishes – and expertise, in the case of the doctor – be overruled or ignored?
In the case of young Reefy, her mother could insist that her daughter wear a mask in school and maintain social distancing at all times. Or, given her unique situation, she could decide that the risk isn't worth it, and keep her daughter home for virtual learning until she is fully vaccinated. Who could fault her for choosing either path? But what does not seem very reasonable, even though it's portrayed as the heroic and obviously correct course of action in the segment, is to demand that every other child be forced into an alleged mitigation requirement – and to sue the governor in an effort to force every family to accommodate her wishes. This debate may be different if kids wearing masks in schools were clearly established by the science as an effective method of preventing COVID transmissions among children. But it's not. We've been citing data and policies from the United Kingdom and European Union to underscore this point for months, but now we have a raft of new evidence from Florida itself.
Critics hysterically predicted that DeSantis' school masking policies would lead to super-spreader catastrophes and untold misery among kids. What has actually happened? Over the first full month of school (September), pediatric cases and case rates have cratered across the state. And as we noted yesterday, the data shows zero statistical difference on these metrics between the majority of counties in which the governor's mask-optional policy was in place versus the dozen-plus holdout districts that defied DeSantis by mandating masks in schools. New cases among school-aged Floridians have fallen slightly more, as a percentage, in areas with optional masking, compared to areas with compulsory masking. Positivity rates are virtually identical across this divide, as well. Unlike other fatally flawed "studies" cited to allegedly demonstrate the efficacy of masks in classrooms, this real-life evidence across an entire state actually compares outcomes in mask-optional vs. mask-required communities. The masks made no difference:
Per Florida Depts of Health & Education data: During September — school underway — juvenile COVID cases & positivity rates plummeted.
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) October 7, 2021
*No statistical differences* between counties without school mask requirements/offering opt-outs & counties imposing mask mandates on students. pic.twitter.com/m8MzFEtnqz
In the clip above, Reefy's mother asserts that in her opinion, the lack of universal masking renders schools "too dangerous" not only for her own daughter, but for all the other children, too (the reporter nods along as she expresses this view). She's entitled to her opinion, and she's certainly entitled to make decisions for Reefy accordingly. But her opinion and personal assessment should not count more than the decisions of other parents. Again, if the data were unambiguously on her side, that would be a different conversation. But the data is mixed and murky at best, with a strong case to be made that her preferred "safety" policy is not statistically effective at all. As for CBS' brief mention of Florida's recent policy change that no longer keeps asymptomatic kids out of school after mere COVID exposures, read this new Washington Post op/ed by two doctors who argue that such quarantines needlessly "keep too many kids at home" and "are probably doing more harm than good." Will CBS News report the Florida September evidence, grapple with the UK and EU experience, or highlight a family with a child whose well-being is hampered by hours of daily masking, with no proven health or 'safety' benefit? Don't hold your breath. There's a Larger Truth to protect, and a Bad Person to attack, so inconvenient science is ignored. I'll leave you with this:
Only Democrats trust the news media, institutions overwhelmingly run and populated by their fellow Democrats. Checks out. https://t.co/Afb3PYi8Vq
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) October 7, 2021
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