Masks, Social Distancing and More Are Creeping Back as Election Season Builds

With little more than a year until the 2024 elections, the reappearance of some COVID-era protocols has sparked concerns that more widespread measures may be ordered in the months ahead. 

This week, Morris Brown College announced on Instagram that “effective immediately,” several COVID-19 protocols, including a campus-wide mask mandate, had been enacted for at least 14 days despit there having been no confirmed COVID-19 cases on campus recently. The measure, the college says, is instead “due to reports of positive cases among students” at other Atlanta-area schools.

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Researchers Flay Medical Journals for COVID ‘Misinformation’ Claims

Three and a half years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, American medical journals are still calling out what they consider commonly shared misinformation on vaccines, masks, transmission and viral origins, sometimes promoted by health professionals.

Yet voluminous research and real-world experiences over that span suggest the journals themselves are promoting outdated, unsupported or exaggerated COVID claims, if not outright misinformation.

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Masks Offer ‘Small’ Benefit Against COVID, Increased CO2 May Be Tied to Stillbirths: Research

The termination of the COVID-19 national emergency has not ended mask mandates in various jurisdictions and settings such as healthcare, even as more peer-reviewed research suggests that face coverings can cause more harm than good.

The Annals of Internal Medicine published the “final update” to a three-year “living, rapid review” of research on mask effectiveness against COVID infection, which concluded masks in healthcare and community settings “may be associated with a small reduction in risk” — 10-18% — but that the evidence is weak.

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International Research Suggests Masks Better at Causing ‘Long COVID’ than Stopping Virus

Government-backed assumptions about the safety and effectiveness of high-quality mask-wearing against COVID-19 are facing scrutiny from new international research that shines a harsh light on the feds’ continued faith in face coverings.

Surgical and N95-grade masks might induce symptoms misidentified as biologically elusive “long COVID,” according to a “systematic review” in the peer-reviewed Swiss journal Frontiers in Public Health. It echoes a recent study of Norwegian adolescents and young adults on long COVID’s connection to “loneliness” and physical inactivity — conditions exacerbated by pandemic interventions.

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Despite Comprehensive Study Showing Masks Ineffective Against COVID and Flu, CDC Director Tells Congress, ‘Our Masking Guidance Doesn’t Really Change With Time’

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky testified during a recent House committee hearing that, despite the recent release of an international research review that found masks are ineffective against COVID-19 and the flu, her agency’s masking guidance “doesn’t really change with time.”

During a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) asked Walensky to explain how the CDC uses evidence to update or change its guidance.

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Medical Student Calls for Profession to ‘Admit We Were Wrong About COVID’

A 7th year medical student from Texas is calling upon those who consider themselves to be part of the “scientific community” to “admit we were wrong about COVID,” and acknowledge the policies encouraged regarding the vaccines, masks, school closures, etc., all “cost lives.”

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Whistleblower Docs: DHS’s Disinformation Board Was Poised to Crack Down on Information Questioning Vaccines, Masks, and Validity of 2020 Election

by Debra Heine   The Department of Homeland Security’s paused “Disinformation Governance Board” (DGB) was set up to respond to matters the government unilaterally determined to be mis-, dis- or mal-information (MDM)—specifically information that counters official regime narratives on “the origins and effects of COVID-19 vaccines,” “the efficacy of masks,” the validity…

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Put Your Masks Back on, Minneapolis Says

City health officials are “strongly” encouraging Minneapolis residents to put their face masks back on, regardless of vaccination status.

The Minneapolis Health Department said in a Thursday news release that residents should “wear masks in indoor public settings and businesses,” citing an increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

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New Study Shows Red States Handled COVID-19 Better Than Blue States

A new study by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity found that states led by Republicans did a better job than Democrat-led states at managing the coronavirus and keeping their states from slumping into an economic and social recession.

As reported by The Daily Caller, the three states that ranked the worst in mortality, economy, and schooling during the COVID pandemic were New Jersey, New York, and California, all of which had implemented some of the strictest lockdown measures in the nation. By contrast, the states that ranked the highest were Utah, Vermont, and Nebraska.

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Analysis: Coming to Grips with the Facts About Masks

Allegations that “masks work” and “don’t cause harm” have been enforced by governments and corporations around the world for more than 18 months through arrests, firings, censorship, fines, and denial of access to schools, supermarkets, hospitals, streets, and other public spaces. This has made it virtually impossible for many people to live without complying with mask mandates.
In recent weeks, however, more medical scholars and media outlets are coming to grips with facts about masks that Just Facts has been documenting for more than a year and painstakingly compiled in a September 2021 article sourced with more than 50 peer-reviewed science journals. Here’s a sample of people who are speaking up about the facts and their implications:

Dr. Vinay Prasad—an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco—has written an article that examines the scientific evidence for masking children and concludes that:

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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to Distribute 2 Million KN95 Masks to Schools, Local Health Organizations

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will distribute approximately 2 million KN95 masks to residents of the state through schools and local health organizations.

The move follows an announcement from President Joe Biden that his administration will disperse 400 million masks across the country, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced certain types of masks are ineffective against preventing coronavirus transmission.

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Missouri Attorney General Sues Nine More School Districts over Mask Requirements

young girl getting face mask put on her face

Missouri Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt on Monday filed lawsuits against nine public school districts with mask requirements.

Schmitt, a candidate for the seat of retiring U.S. Republican Senator Roy Blunt, filed suit against 36 school districts on Friday. Today’s districts being sued include the Kirkwood School District and the Special School District of St. Louis, both serving where Schmitt resides in Glendale, Mo.

“As we’ve made clear from the beginning, the power to make health decisions for their children should be in the hands of parents, not bureaucrats,” Schmitt said in a statement. “Today I’m filing nine more lawsuits against school districts that are illegally enforcing mask mandates on schoolchildren. Masking children all day in school is ineffective and these endless pandemic restrictions lead to lasting, negative psychological impacts on children and teens. This is a fight worth fighting, and I’m not going to back down.”

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Commentary: It’s 2022, But Many Schools Are Reverting to 2020’s COVID Playbook

young girl getting face mask put on her face

It’s 2022 but you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s still 2020—especially if you have children enrolled in K-12 district schooling. Some parents are grappling this week with a return to, or threat of, remote learning first introduced nearly two years ago.

Fear of the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus is leading school officials across the country to once again shutter schools. In Cleveland, for example, this first week of school for the new year is entirely remote for public school students. Several districts throughout Ohio are following suit, while others are re-imposing 2020 virus-related restrictions or extending the holiday break into this week.

Newark, New Jersey public schools announced they will be fully remote for the next two weeks, as did other districts throughout the state. Public schools in Atlanta will also be closed this week, reverting back to remote learning.

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Rochester Schools Ban Man for a Year Because He Didn’t Wear a Mask to Board Meeting

The school board in Rochester, Minnesota, followed through on its commitment to ban parents who don’t wear masks in the name of COVID-19 prevention at its last meeting.

The man, who remains unnamed according to local media, was escorted from the board room where a police officer was waiting to give him a citation. At the end of last month, Rochester Public Schools (RPS) unveiled a mask policy that forces everyone at school board meetings to wear an “effective” face mask. What makes a face mask effective is not defined.

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CDC Says Five-Year-Olds Will Still Need to Wear Masks After Vaccine Is Approved for Kids

Blonde child wearing hair up, holding journal and wearing a mask

Students as young as five years old may still need to wear masks in school after the COVID-19 vaccine is approved for children ages 5-11, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said in a White House briefing Wednesday. Walensky did not discuss if or when children would not be required to wear masks in school.

“After we have authorization from (the Food and Drug Administration) and recommendations from the CDC, we will be working to scale up pediatric vaccination. That said, it will take some time … as we head into these winter months, we know we cannot be complacent,” Walensky stated.

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Commentary: The Insufferable Piety of the Progressive Elites

Freedom in Australia is now at the mercy of a state and its police apparatus bent on controlling people’s every movement.

But despite the extensive footage of protests gone violent, neither American liberal media nor domestic social justice movements are raising alarms about police brutality in that country.

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Science on Mask Usage Indicates Scant Benefit

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recommended that all schools require mask-wearing indoors by teachers and students, vaccinated or unvaccinated against COVID-19. 

And many school districts are adopting that requirement, to the dismay of many parents.

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Former Biden COVID Adviser Concedes Cloth Masks ‘Are Not Very Effective’

Someone holding a bunch of cloth masks

Akey SARS-Cov-2 expert acknowledged this week that a mainstay of the global coronavirus response — the use of cloth masks — does little to stop the spread of the virus.

Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and an adviser on President Joe Biden’s transitional COVID-19 advisory board, made the stunning claim on CNN this week amid escalating worldwide fears and concerns over the “Delta variant” of COVID-19.

“We know today that many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out,” Osterholm said during the interview.

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Commentary: Politically Correct Ideology Is Masking and Contributing to the Widespread Failure of Our Institutions

close up of green masks on a table

We know the nature of mass hysterias in history, and how they can overwhelm and paralyze what seem to be stable societies.  

We know the roots and origins of the cult of wokeness.  

And we know, too, how such insanity—from the Salem witch trials to Jacobinism to McCarthyism—can spread, despite alienating most of the population, through fear and the threat of personal ruin or worse. These are the dark sides of the tulip, hula-hoop, and pet-rock fads, the mass obsessions so suited to past affluent Western societies.  

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Biden Requiring Federal Government Workers to Show Proof of Vaccination

COVID-19 AstraZeneca Vaccine vial and NHS record card

President Joe Biden on Thursday said his administration will require all federal employees and contractors to show proof of vaccination, a move met with swift opposition from Texas elected officials.

Federal workers or contractors who can’t show a proof of vaccination will be required to wear masks, practice physical distancing, and be subject to twice-weekly COVID-19 tests under the new rules.

Biden encouraged the private sector and professional sports leagues to follow suit in an address on Thursday.

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Commentary: The CDC’s Hysterical Delta Flip-Flop Might Be Its Final Undoing

The crazy, convoluted, mixed up messaging from the CDC – it’s been this way from the beginning of the pandemic until now – has taken yet another turn. Now the CDC is recommending masks not just for the unvaccinated but for the vaccinated too. This is supposedly because of the discovery that the variant known as Delta is making an end-run around the vaccines, causing not only infections but infectious spread. 

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Prominent Medical Journals Highlight Harm to Children from Masks, Death Risk from COVID Vaccines

The range of acceptable opinion on COVID-19 mitigation efforts may be widening, with peer-reviewed medical journals recently publishing research finding that masks likely harm schoolchildren and questioning whether benefits from COVID-19 vaccines outweigh risks.

Measured carbon dioxide content in “inhaled air,” observed in a study of masked German schoolchildren, was at least three-fold higher than German law allows, according to a research letter published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics.

Last week, the journal Vaccines, affiliated with the American Society for Virology, published research that estimates every three COVID-19 deaths prevented by vaccination are offset by two deaths “inflicted by vaccination,” using Israeli and European data.

The papers share a lead author, Harald Walach, a professor in Poznan University of the Medical Sciences’ Pediatric Clinic in Poland and University of Witten/Herdecke’s psychology department in Germany.

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Commentary: Remote Work’s Impending Transformation of Middle America

Computer with video chat on screen and mug next to laptop

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed a great deal about America and Americans. Most have acquiesced to anything and everything government bureaucrats asked for in the name of public safety. Masks have been donned, churches have been shuttered, and many of us stayed at home for months, working remotely.

This last item may end up being the largest and most permanent transformation of the United States. The mobility that comes with remote work may end up transforming middle America as left-coast technologists migrate inward. Freed from the work-based ties that bind them to Silicon Valley and New York City, they can now easily take their jobs and their left-wing politics to the heartland, ushering in a transformative moment in American politics.

Thomas Edsall, writing for The New York Times, discusses how many from densely populated urban areas on the coasts are finding that remote work enables them to have big city paychecks while living in suburban or rural areas with lower costs of living. 

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St. Paul School Requires Masks During Outdoor Recess, Despite Updated Guidance and Zero Cases

A St. Paul elementary school announced to parents that students will be expected to continue wearing their masks while outside at recess, despite seeing zero COVID-19 cases in the school and receiving new guidance from the district.

St. Anthony Park Elementary School notified families of this rule in a letter from the principal, saying it “may seem overly cautious,” but several reasons contributed to the decision, including concern from parents and staff.

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More Americans Are Living Their Lives, Leaving Masks at Home, Survey Shows

Group of people sitting at public restaurant, eating.

A majority of Americans said for the first time in over a year that returning to their “normal” pre-pandemic lives did not pose a moderate or large health risk, an Axios/Ipsos survey shows.

The survey, released Tuesday, showed just 43% of Americans saying that returning to “normal” posed either a large or moderate risk to their health. It also shows that majorities of Americans have begun to enjoy several aspects of pre-pandemic life: 54% of Americans have eaten at a restaurant, 59% have visited family or friends and 31% have made summer plans – all in the past week alone.

The return to normalcy and the mental health benefits associated with it directly corresponds with the amount of Americans who say they have been vaccinated. Almost two-thirds of respondents say that they have received at least one shot, and 18% say that their emotional well-being has improved in the past week, which the survey notes is an all-time high during the pandemic.

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Biden Suggests Masks Will Be Worn Through Next Year

President Joe Biden indicated that Americans may need to wear masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus for the remainder of 2021.

Speaking during a visit to the National Institutes of Health complex on Thursday, Biden also spoke about the U.S. vaccine supply and his goals for the rollout, and suggested that mask-wearing will likely be a reality for the next year, Fox News reports.

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Commentary: Trump Is Now One with Countless Essential Workers

Joe Biden has redefined mask wearing. It is now the thinking man’s patriotism, what every “scientific” and “refined” mind naturally does.

Biden, the media, and the progressive party all blame the now ill Trump for becoming infected. They accuse the president of becoming sick because he was selfish. You see, he was not always wearing a mask, or not always isolating in social-distancing fashion, or not always staying inside except for essential expeditionary trips.

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Metro Nashville Council Member Wants People Not Wearing a Mask to Be Charged with Murder or Attempted Murder

Metro Nashville At-Large Council Member Sharon Hurt said Wednesday during a virtual meeting of the Joint Pubic Safety and Health Committee that there should be stronger legislation for those not wearing masks and suggested they be charged with murder or attempted murder.

Hurt said that she works for an organization that, “If they pass the virus, then they are tried for murder or attempted murder.”

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Walz Says Statewide Mask Mandate Is ‘On the Table’

Gov. Tim Walz said a statewide mask mandate to help curb the spread of COVID-19 is “on the table” during a Monday press conference.

According to Walz, Republican governors who participated in a Monday phone call with Vice President Mike Pence were also “exploring the idea.”

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Walz Says Statewide Mask Mandate Is ‘On the Table’

Gov. Tim Walz said a statewide mask mandate to help curb the spread of COVID-19 is “on the table” during a Monday press conference.

According to Walz, Republican governors who participated in a Monday phone call with Vice President Mike Pence were also “exploring the idea.”

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