Florida surgeon general smacks down mask mandates for kids, says data shows no ‘clinical benefit’
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Florida’s Harvard-trained surgeon general explained that the data supporting school mask mandates ‘is very weak, and that’s a fact.’
(LifeSiteNews) — Florida’s new surgeon general, a Harvard-trained physician and researcher specializing in public health policy, argued that there is no “clinical benefit” to forcing children to wear masks at schools. He backed up Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ stance that the decision to mask children should be left up to parents, not school boards.
Speaking at an event in Brevard County along with Gov. DeSantis, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who was appointed to his roles as Surgeon General and Secretary of Health for the state of Florida in September, invited attendees to “step back for a moment from what you hear sort of constantly on TV.”
“Just very briefly, in terms of the data that supports mask use in kids and mandates for masking kids, it is very weak, and that’s a fact,” Ladapo said.
The surgeon general, who earned his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in Health Policy from Harvard Graduate School, added that despite what is being repeated by “some of our public health leadership in other states and nationally,” “there is a substantial gap between the quality of the data out there supporting masking kids yielding any benefit for kids whatsoever.”
“In Florida we’re going to stay close to the data, and we’re going to let you know how we feel about the data. And the data do not support any clinical benefit for children in schools with mask mandates. The highest quality data find no evidence of benefit. And we’re going to stick with that,” Ladapo explained.