It turns out CO2 is not a climate threat, but masking up for COVID makes it dangerous. At the Federalist Maggie Hroncich explains in an article AMA Journal: Masks Are Bad For Your Kids. Quit Forcing Them To Wear Them Excerpts in italics with my bolds.
A new report published by an American Medical Association journal revealed forcing children to wear face masks leads to adverse health effects. JAMA Pediatrics, a top-rated monthly journal published by the AMA, found wearing face masks increases the amount of carbon dioxide in inhaled air to unhealthy levels.
The study measured carbon dioxide levels in 45 children ages 6-17 while wearing masks. The normal content of carbon dioxide in the air is 400 parts per million (ppm), with anything above 2000 ppm considered unacceptable by the German Federal Environmental Office.
The JAMA report measured averages of 13,120 to 13,910 ppm of carbon dioxide in the inhaled air of children wearing masks, which is over six times higher than the unsafe threshold. The study further pointed out this measurement was after only three minutes of wearing a mask. Children forced to wear masks at school find themselves wearing masks for hours, five days a week.
The JAMA report follows a larger German survey of over 25,000 children, which found 68 percent of them reportedly had problems while wearing facial coverings.
“Most of the complaints reported by children can be understood as consequences of elevated carbon dioxide levels in inhaled air,” the JAMA study concluded. “This is because of the dead-space volume of the masks, which collects exhaled carbon dioxide quickly after a short time.”
“This carbon dioxide mixes with fresh air and elevates the carbon dioxide content of inhaled air under the mask, and this was more pronounced in this study for younger children.” The authors of the study urged those who are forcing children to wear masks to consider the scientific evidence when making that decision.
“Many governments have made nose and mouth covering or face masks compulsory for schoolchildren. The evidence base for this is weak,” the study found. “We suggest that decision-makers weigh the hard evidence produced by these experimental measurements accordingly, which suggest that children should not be forced to wear face masks.”
Meanwhile Fauci Gets It Wrong Again
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 7:00 PM PT – Monday, July 19, 2021
Dr. Anthony Fauci has pushed for young children to wear face masks as school look to reopen nationwide. Earlier on Monday, the nation’s chief medical advisor stood beside the American Academy of Pediatrics who recommended schools could require young children as young as three-years-old to mask up indoors, regardless of their vaccination states.
Science Matters 
Sounds like awfully tight masks. I don’t remember dying when I wore my cowboy mask as a kid. Or particularly suffering from CO2 when I wore air purifying respirators or did military MOPP 4 training. This seems to be a bit of an exaggeration.
Whether young children need masks is an issue for discussion.
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Bob, I think the issue is masks that inhibit the escape of your own exhaled CO2, inhaled in the next breath. Respirators avoid that problem. Cloth masks are purely symbolic, allowing fresh air in and stale air out. And of course, also allow the free flow of viruses and other nano-particles.
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I wore a cloth mask for 10 minutes while getting a haircut. Within 5 minutes, my pulse was up, breathing rate up, and blood pressure up. One also suffers a physiological response of anxiety and masked people feeling anxious and threatened look for people without masks as they instinctively look for related threats.
We breath out 20,000+ ppm CO2 and in at 400 ppm. The air trapped in the mask is not that much but the exhaled air which usually blows away from your body is slowed down and goes around or through the mask, forming a layer in from of your face. Notice how our nostrils send air outward in two diverging flows and our mouths in one outward flow. [Think about what you see when someone is smoking—the smoke goes away from the face.] Then, we inhale air from around our face. Masks stop this normal air exchange.
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Thanks Ron for your consistently interesting blog.
You might find the comments on this actual Research Letter which was published in JAMA Pediatrics quite interesting. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2781743
The following comment in particular.
July 5, 2021
Flawed Design, Unsafe Conclusions
Trisha Greenhalgh, FMedSci | University of Oxford
Walach et. al’s Research Letter [1] contains major flaws which cast doubt on the paper’s scientific integrity.
Most importantly, the main outcome cannot test the authors’ hypothesis. The authors used a surrogate outcome – carbon dioxide (CO2) levels inside the mask – as a proxy for CO2 levels inhaled by a child. This is actually a measure of ‘dead space’ CO2. Most of the air entering the child’s lungs will be inhaled from the ambient air outside the mask (in the same way a swimmer using a snorkel breathes in a small amount of ‘dead space’ air from within the snorkel, but most air comes from outside it).
Second, CO2 levels were not correctly measured. The Geotech G100 is designed to be used with incubators. It has a response time of 20 seconds (T90 = 20 seconds, i.e. the instrument takes 20 seconds to reach 90% of a stable reading) [2]. In comparison, a capnograph [3], which would have been an appropriate instrument to use in this study, stabilizes in milliseconds. The study claims to have measured CO2 in inhaled air, but the authors provide no basis for distinguishing between inhaled and exhaled air, using the G100, at 1.5 cm from nose and face.
The authors report no meaningful physiological variables, such as blood oxygen saturation or arterial partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2). Measurement of transient increases in CO2 around the breathing zone (even if accurate) are not indicative of harm. Although Supplementary material reports that oximeters were used during the study and pulse rates appear to have been measured by oximeters, oxygen saturation level data are not reported.
The authors’ causal claims regarding physiological impact are wholly unsupported by the data.
The science of mask-wearing should be based on good data. Some of the authors have publicly associated themselves with, and taken funding from, non-science-based campaign groups [4]. We respectfully suggest that not only is this study scientifically flawed, but its publication puts the reputation of JAMA Pediatrics and its peer-review process at risk.
Professor Trisha Greenhalgh FMedSci, University of Oxford
Megan L. Ranney MD MPH, Brown University
Asit Kumar Mishra PhD, Berkeley Education Alliance for Research in Singapore
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Thanks Andy. Interesting they say a Covid mask is like a snorkel. What then is the point of wearing one?
https://rclutz.com/2020/10/19/covid-masquerade/
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Hi Ron,
I don’t have any particular barrow to push here. I was just drawing your attention to the fact that there were some very reasonable questions being raised about the methodology and conclusions of this particular paper.
What then is the point of wearing a mask is a whole different question. Not all masks are equal and certainly all wearers are not equal. Masks made of appropriate materials that are worn and handled properly and that are changed regularly will probably reduce the risk of droplet transmission, but the risk of aerosol transmission persists.
The whole mask issue has now become hopelessly politicized.
There is no good evidence that mask wearing in the community as it is currently widely practiced has any beneficial effect. This review and meta-analysis concedes the evidence is weak. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext
However concluding “COVID masks make CO2 Toxic” on the basis of this paper is probably an over reach.
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Andy, thanks for another thoughtful comment. Indeed I resorted to hyperbole in the title, in order to attract attention (the same way alarmists do). As with any virtue-signalling behavior, the upside of mask-wearing is mostly symbolic, demonstrating compliance with legal demands. The downside is ignored or dismissed in order to keep the controls in place. As Higley mentions, wearing a surgical mask means inhaling your own exhaled CO2. And in my case I am not long in the store, before I lift the mask to get some fresh air. I don’t know how the staff in stores and restaurants can put up with it for a whole workshift. As always, individuals have different reactions to stale air, but the downside is real and must be factored in to proscribing public behaviors.
A further issue with children is the fact that schools have long served as training grounds for children’s immune systems. Getting infected with a mild or no sickness is part of preparing for adult life. Over protection also has a downside.
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Update: The journal has retracted the article, and the authors are pushing back:
Author of Retracted Study on Harm of Mask-Wearing by Children Says Removal Was ‘Political’
https://www.theepochtimes.com/author-of-retracted-study-on-harm-of-mask-wearing-by-children-says-removal-was-political_3911445.html
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Ron could you post a link to the larger German study?
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John, the references include these two:
Schwarz S, Jenetzky E, Krafft H, Maurer T, Martin D. Corona children studies “Co-Ki”: first results of a Germany-wide registry on mouth and nose covering (mask) in children. Published 2021. Accessed June 15, 2021. https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-124394/v1
4.
Mitteilungen der Ad-hoc-Arbeitsgruppe Innenraumrichtwerte der Innenraumlufthygiene-Kommission des Umweltbundesamtes und der Obersten Landesgesundheitsbehörden. [Health evaluation of carbon dioxide in indoor air]. Bundesgesundheitsblatt Gesundheitsforschung Gesundheitsschutz. 2008;51(11):1358-1369. doi:10.1007/s00103-008-0707-2PubMed
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Masks work – 1) As a symbol of control.
2) To divide people
3) To dehumanize & mask them
4) To inhibit fresh oxygen
5) To limit vitamin D
6) To put everyone into a panic
It’s working and it’s unbelievable ✨
BUT God is bigger #lovewins #faithwins
The amazing thing is seeing so many people coming together in communities to fight against their agenda 💞
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