When Kentucky abused children
This series of reports hasn’t yet gotten to its main entry on what is likely the worst “new normal” development of all: mask mandates in schools. This was a new low for a totalitarian system that is proficient at only one thing: setting new lows. This proves there is no bottom as to how low things can go. Mask mandates have no scientific or societal justification, but have been a test of compliance to lockdown culture, and they continue in some settings.
Now a document has been unearthed that shows once again that children have suffered most of the brunt of the “new normal.” Keep in mind that masking young children would have been considered unacceptable before 2020. Under the consensus that prevailed until only four years ago, it would have been considered child abuse. Period. This document is dated March 2021 and was produced by Kentucky officials. It is titled “Child Care Face Mask Permission Form.”
This form allowed parents to let their children wear masks in childcare facilities if they were at least three years old and younger than first grade. The form had a “parent or guardian attestation” that read, “I acknowledge that wearing a face mask could put my child at increased risk of choking, suffocation, or strangulation.” Then why allow it?
Another part of the form said, “A child care provider shall not require a child who is not in the first grade or above to wear a face mask.” Did this mean they could require it once a child reached first grade? Why yes, it did. In fact, a Courier-Journal article from December 2020 said childcare providers must require masks for children who were in first grade and up. This was still in place three months later when the aforementioned document appeared—which was also three months after vaccines came out.
An undated separate document by Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services said, “While a young child is in a group setting with other children, the mask is a significant risk to suffocation and strangulation, even if the mask were simply to pull on a book shelf while the child walks past. Plus, young children will touch the mask so frequently and take if off so often that it will not benefit them. The plan for asking young children not to wear masks is to prevent injury to the child. If the parent demands that the child wear the mask, then he or she is probably not ready for the child to return to group child care at this time.” Yet the other document completely undercut this warning. The undated document also read, “Elementary school children should refrain from wearing a mask on the playground when participating in moderate to vigorous activity because it could limit oxygen intake at that time.” Yet many elementary schools in Kentucky mandated masks even when on the playground.
It gets even worse. In August 2021—eight months after vaccines were released—Kentucky issued a new rule that said masks were mandatory for children down to age two in childcare facilities. This was despite the above warning. This was also after Gov. Andy Beshear boasted that masks would not be mandatory in childcare or schools in the new school year. When Beshear backtracked on that statement, he sure made a fool of himself, didn’t he? We can count ourselves among the many voters who had buyer’s remorse after electing this bully in 2019. How many of us in 2019 could possibly imagine we were voting for waterboarding two-year-olds? We thought it was bad when the previous governor wasted taxpayer money compiling a report that demanded slashing Social Security, but this was uncharted territory.
It is important to reiterate that none of these mask mandates enacted since 2020 would have been deemed even remotely acceptable before then. Standards have moved backwards. It’s also important to reiterate that officials flat-out lied when they said vaccines would end restrictions. We don’t like being lied to.
Corporal punishment does not belong in schools. Most parents these days won’t allow a principal to paddle their child. So why should we allow children to be suffocated? Also, after a short-lived ban in the early 1990s expired, it took Kentucky education officials until November 2023 to ban corporal punishment in schools. They insisted on waiting until all of the state’s 171 school districts agreed to the regulation. Yet regulators wasted no time issuing mask mandates in schools. With mask mandates, they didn’t bother to gain approval from school districts first.
Just a few days ago, a Reddit comment said a Virginia childcare provider still requires masks on young children.
A broken school system. A broken political system. A broken society. And children are left suffering more than anyone else. Thank heavens there were some folks and institutions that didn’t go along with “new normal” totalitarianism. Unfortunately, there were never enough.