Jomsky, Mark
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:
Jim Brook
Monday, February 14, 2022 3:34 PM
Jomsky, Mark
Stop Masking Kids
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Re: Stop Masking Kids
Dear Mr. Jomsky,
In recent days, governments across the US and around the world have rolled back their restrictive Covid 19 mandates. They have done this for a variety of reasons - covid numbers are rapidly declining , scientists are openly questioning the lack of science supporting the efficacy of the mandates - as well as the real-world realization that they just aren't working, and citizens are expressing frustration over the mixed messaging and outrage after witnessing the toll mandates have taken on our communities and especially our children.
On Monday, Governor Newsom announced the end of indoor mask mandates in California as of February 15th.
That is, of course, except for children, who must continue to wear masks in school and day care, all day, every day, likely indefinitely. School children and masking are not even part of the discussion when it comes to ending these harmful mandates. This is outrageous for so many reasons but mainly because the LEAST at risk population are being forced to protect anxious adults and they are suffering immeasurably for it. The United States is uniquely aggressive in masking children as young as 2 years old, against the recommendation of the WHO. According to Vinay Prasad, oncologist at UCSF, Jonathan Darrow of Harvard University and Ian Liu of the Univers ity of Colorado , "We are well past the emergency phase of this pandemic , and it should be well known by now that wearing cloth face cover ings or surgical masks, universal or otherwise, has a very minor role to play in preventing person-to-person transmission . It is time to stop overselling their efficacy and unrealistic expectations about their ability to end the pandemic." The argument that students must wear masks all day at school seems to be that they must protect teachers and vulnerable people in their homes. With vaccinations available to teachers and those vulnerable relatives, why do students need to wear masks? We have made this unforgivable decision to shift the anxieties of adults onto the youngest members of society that count on us to defend their interests before our own. Kids don't protect adults! Vaccines and masks protect the individual that chooses to take and wear them. We can no longer place the burden of protecting the vulnerable on our children. They have suffered enough. NO one needs "normal" more than children.
Sincerely,
Jim Brook
Pasadena, CA 91107 Constituent
Prepared by OneClickPolitics (tm) at www.oneclickpolitics.com. OneClickPo litics provides online communications tools for supporters of a cause, issue, organization or association to contact their elected officials. For more information regarding our policies and services , please contact [email protected] 1 02/14/2022
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Jomsky, Mark
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:
Maddie Brook s
Monday , February 14, 2022 3:06 PM
Jomsky , Mark
We Are Going on Two Years- End the Mandates
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Re: We Are Going on Two Years- End the Mandates
Dear Mr. Jomsky,
I am writing on behalf of my child to ask that the Pasadena Public Health Department (PPHD) follow recent and accurate scientific data and allow our students to return to normalcy without harmful and unnecessary policies like mandatory masking indoors and out, excessive quarantining, and ineffective routine asymptomatic testing. All of these policies have kept thousand s of Pasadena students from attending and fully participating in classroom instruction for two years.
The PPHD must stop looking at public health from the singular lens of eliminating COVID-19 cases and weigh the consequences of public health restrictions on healthy innocent children who have suffered immensely as a result of harmful school closures , masking and other needless restrictions.
There is significant evidence that children do not need to wear masks. Kids are plainly the least likely to be struck ill by COVID-19 and probably are the least likely to spread it. Studies have shown masks provide little to no benefit in stopping the spread of viruses and can obviously be counterproductive when not worn properly. At the same time, our city has ignored that children living in mask-mandate states have had essentially identical COVID-19 fatality rates as kids living in mask-free states.
With teachers, staff and kids all having had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated, the perceived risk of death, hospitalization and severe illness to school communities has been alleviated. There is now no public health justification for forcing children to wear masks in school. When balanced against the physical , mental and emotional harm that is now becoming evident, it is clear that masks do more harm than good. Studies have found that masks cause anxiety and depressive feelings , and impair a child's social development and ability to communicate. Masks should never be considered the new normal for our children.
PPHD must start following the current scientific data that shows that current requirements for masks, quarantines and testing are outdated and overcaut ious. PPHD must also weigh the physical, mental and academic harm to students from these policies that unnecessarily deny students their fundamental right to a thriving and proper education.
I am calling on my local elected representative and health agency to discontinue these harmful policies and act in the best interest of our children . If we can host the Super Bowl in California, we are not in a state of emergency. Please let my child finally return to normalcy.
Sincerely,
Maddie Brooks
1 02/14/2022
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Jomsky, Mark
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:
Michelle Brooks
Monday , February 14, 2022 2:07 PM
Jomsky, Mark
Let Kids Be Normal Again
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Re: Let Kids Be Normal Again
Dear Mr. Jomsky,
In recent days, governments across the US and around the world have rolled back their restrictive Covid 19 mandates. They have done this for a variety of reasons - covid numbers are rapidly declining, scientists are openly questioning the lack of science supporting the efficacy of the mandates - as well as the real-world realization that they just aren't working, and citizens are expressing frustration over the mixed messaging and outrage after witnessing the toll mandates have taken on our communities and especially our children.
On Monday, Governor Newsom announced the end of indoor mask mandates in California as of February 15th.
That is, of course, except for children , who must continue to wear masks in school and day care, all day, every day, likely indefinitely . School children and masking are not even part of the discussion when it comes to ending these harmful mandates. This is outrageous for so many reasons but mainly because the LEAST at risk population are being forced to protect anxious adults and they are suffering immeasurably for it. The United States is uniquely aggress ive in masking children as young as 2 years old, against the recommendation of the WHO. According to Vinay Prasad, oncolog ist at UCSF, Jonathan Darrow of Harvard University and Ian Liu of the University of Colorado, "We are well past the emergency phase ofthis pandemic , and it should be well known by now that wearing cloth face coverings or surgical masks, universal or otherwise, has a very minor role to play in preventing person-to-person transmission. It is time to stop overselling their efficacy and unrealistic expectations about their ability to end the pandemic." The argument that students must wear masks all day at school seems to be that they must protect teachers and vulnerab le people in their homes. With vaccinations available to teachers and those vulnerable relatives, why do students need to wear masks? We have made this unforgivable decision to shift the anxieties of adults onto the youngest members of society that count on us to defend their interests before our own. Kids don't protect adults! Vaccines and masks protect the individual that chooses to take and wear them . We can no longer place the burden of protecting the vulnerable on our children. They have suffered enough . NO one needs "norma l" more than children.
Sincerely ,
Michelle Brooks
Pasadena, CA 91107 Const ituent
Prepared by OneClickPo litics (tm) at www.o neclickpo litics.com . OneC lickPo litics provide s online communications too ls for suppo rters of a cause, issue, organizat ion or association to contact their elected officials . For more information regardin g our policies and services , please contact [email protected] 1 02/14/2022
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Jomsky, Mark
From:
Sent :
To:
Subject:
Angela Buchanan
Monday , February 14, 2022 3:43 PM
Jomsky, Mark
Public Health, COVI D-19, and Pasadena Students
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Re: Public Health , COVID-19, and Pasadena Students
Dear Mr. Jomsky,
Pasadena and Los Angeles County children are the most masked and mandated children in America, yet we now know kids are the least affected from COVID-19. It is concerning that we have data showing COVID-19 is not impacting children , yet our children statistically have paid the highest price, and still do. So far, our track record of keeping kids less impacted from strict measures is nowhere near stellar here in California. After almost two years of COVID taking over our lives, we now know children still have not regained their learning loss from previous school closures , cases of mental health problems are skyrockting, suicide attempts have risen by 51 % according to the CDC, and sadly, many schools still have not returned to normal. It is time to end the never-ending state of emergency.
The newest post surge masking requirements do not get our kids closer to what we all consider a normal return to school like we all remember ; running , playing , learning and eating without concern for the latest variant or the newe st mandated mask variety. The lack of transparency on science and data on which these policies have been based, have resulted in a massive disruption to our children's lives and education. Masking kids needs to end on February 15th when the state order expires.
We are not distributing the risks of mandates and protocols fairly by having kids in stifling surgical masks, quarantining at home for close contacts for days on end, and going beyond CDC recommendations for COVID protocols like masking during outdoor playtime . Even more concerning is that we will soon have the Super Bowl here in LA while kids face even stricter protocol s than any child in the nation. If LA County can hold the Super Bowl, there is no state of emergency. Period.
It is time to return to the normal we all once knew and take kids into consideration and start treating them as growing human beings with the ability to reach appropriate developmental milestones without having to overcome more unnecessar y obstacles. There are many kids around this country, and the entire world, who do not face the type of archaic policies of masks and quarantine in which our children continue to be entrenched.
Let 's move beyond the COVID cases in our dashboard and begin treating our kids who remain in crisis by recognizing their needs first and foremost by getting them back to normal. Public health does not let one group fail to support another.
Angela Buchanan
Sincerely,
Angela Buchanan
Pasadena, CA 91106 Constituent
1 02/14/2022
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Flores, Valerie
From: Dana Havesor.
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2022 3:37 PM
PublicComment-AutoResponse To:
Subject: covid masks in Pasadena schools - Please read, I actually wrote it and didn't just copy somebody elses form letter
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Hello. Before I began to write this letter, I looked through some of the previous correspondence that has been sent regarding this issue. I didn't get far before I realized that most of the letters are regurgitated talking points that are citing mostly facebook based "data" regarding kids and covid. It is not true that kids are not impacted by covid, it is not true that masks don't help, it is most certainly not true that adults choosing to continue with a mostly unmasked Super Bowl is any justification or metric by which to decide best safety practices for kids day in and day out in the close quarters of a classroom. The problem with the attempted "logic" behind most of these form letters is that the biological reality of a virus does not care that people want normalcy . Viral spread and reproduction and the ensuing mutations do not factor in whether or not entitled people "wanna" or "don't wanna" do it anymore. The virus will continue to follow it's biological imperative and spread wherever and whenever the conditions are ideal for viral spread. So while I agree that there will be times when mask mandates can be lessened, it is not when 2500 fellow Americans are dying a day.
The following is a highlight of the most egregious pieces of misinformation repeatedly mentioned in the canned mask opposition letters you have received so far, and ACTUAL INFORMATION and sources to refute them .
1. Children ARE at risk from covid. They get sick, they get hospitalized, they get put on ventilators, they die. They develop Long Covid and Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome. These are life altering , debilitating outcomes, sometimes life ending, regardless of what someone said on facebook. a. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-omicron-is-putting-more -kids-in-the-hospital/ b. https://www.longcovidkids.org/
c. https://www .cdc.gov/mis/mis-c .html
2. Children are not harmed by masks. They wear them comfortably and safely, the same way they wear hats, pants, shoes and underwear .
http s://www.reuters.com/a rticle/factcheck-m asks-children/fa ct-check-masks-do-not-expose-chi Id ren-to da ngerous-levels-of-ca rbon-d ioxide-id USL1 N2 P929 B
3. The virus may be becoming endemic, but that word does not mean what many think it means. People are under the false assumption that endemics are innately mild and easily manageable. This is, by definition, not true . In fact, if/when covid becomes truly endemic, it may be at a high level that requires some more permanent or long term use of masking, not necessarily less.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00155-x
4. Suicide rates are not up dramatically in kids due to being home from school. Even if they were, school is not closed, kids are in school. Suicide rates are not in any way linked to mask wearing. Experts in child suicide find that suicide rates in kids are higher when they are in school, and drop when the are at home. Thread from Tyler Black, MD FRCPC - Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist/ Researcher/ Suicidologist https://twitter.com/tylerblack32/status/1479135692353679363
5. The mental health of students is being adversely affected by the pandemic, not the mitigation efforts . While I fully understand and have seen with my own eyes the stress and loneliness that the early days of the pandemic caused for the children of this generation, the cause of that was the virus. The idea that kids would not have pandemic related anxiety simply by not requiring they wear masks is ridiculous and unfounded. As evidenced by petitions and walk-outs that kids have staged around the country to demand that common sense protections 1 02/14/2022
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such as mask wearing be in place for their safety as well as their wider communities. I don't have a citation for this, but reason wou ld dictate that the mental health toll of being personally hospitalized or developing long covid would be worse than the toll of wearing a mask. Add to that the mental health impact of a parent, sibling, teacher or friend dying and having to deal with the loss as well as the possibility of survivors guilt. Over 200,000 kids in America have lost a primary caregiver to covid SO FAR. https ://www.newsweek. com/covid -orphans over-200000-ch ildre n-lost-pa rent-ca re give r-167 5856
6. Masks do IN FACT materially reduce spread of airborne viruses. To suggest otherwise is just willful ignorance. a. https://www.cdc .gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106el.htm
7. The suggestion that wearing a mask to protect teachers and vulnerable families members is not a valid justification is what is wrong with American society in a nutshell. Seeing as how surviving adversity builds character, I can only assume that none of the people making this outlandish suggestion have ever experienced true adversity, and thus have been able to become the selfish, entitled, and selectively ignorant adults that they are today. We should be teaching our children the value of compassion and the responsibility of a civilized society to protect each other, including the most vulnerable.
8. If the oppositions stated claim is that vaccinations should preclude the need for other safety measures, such as masks, I assume they all are on board with throwing their full support behind vaccine mandates? I would further be interested to know the vaccination status of everyone that submitted one of these "dittos" of opposition, whether they actually have children in Pasadena schools, and whether they have any factual citation for their position other than just "I heard" so now "I want" ...
I additionally would like to point out that I imagine these letters come from people that are in a position to chose their exposures and personal risk. It is our duty as a society to remember that there are people at those schools that are not just our privileged kids. There are maintenance staff and cafeteria workers and bus drivers and teachers and counselors. They have diabetes, or live with grandparents, or have kids with leukemia, or spouses recovering from cancer. They don't get to choose their level of exposure, and continue to pay their bills. We have a responsibility to protect them.
I am sure that the anti-mask campaign of flooding your in box with duplication after duplication of nonsense may preclude my message from being read. I certainly hope that Pasadena City Council will maintain the backbone that it has shown thus far, necessary to continue it's wise and scientifically warranted safety measures, and that in doing so we can get closer to a day wear masks are not needed, instead of just not wanted .
Thank you for your time and efforts to keep us all safe.
Best,
Dana Haveson
Pasadena constituent
2 02/14/2 022
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Jomsky, Mark
From:
Sent :
To:
Subject :
Page Malloy
Monday, February 14, 2022 2:55 PM
Jomsky, Mark
End the Mandates
CAUTION: This email was delivered from the Internet. Do not click links or open attachments unless you know the content is safe. Report phish using the Phish Alert Button . Learn more ....
Re: End the Mandates
Dear Mr. Jomsky,
It is difficult to quantify the damage perpetrated on our children by the state and local governments as a result of online learning, mask wearing , testing and living in a state of fear and uncertainty. The current environment where kids must test, quarantine and endlessly mask on a massive scale cannot continue and is not viable.
The never-ending state of emergency, by which unelected officials maintain power and mandate policies, and the lack of transparency on science and data on which these policies have been based, have resulted in a massive disruption to our children' s lives and education. Pasadena residents, and most especially parents, are tired of being governed by unelected health officia ls in violation of our constitut ional rights to transparency, public participation , and due process. We as parents would like to decide what is best for our children's health and safety.
The Emergency Services Act states that an emergency can be declared when there exists "extreme peril to the safety of persons and property within the state." The act also states that the government must terminate the state of emergency at the earliest possible date that conditions warrant. A state of emergency cannot be indefinite.
Mayor Gordo and City Council , you are the officials elected by the people and we ask that you start to question this state of emergency and the decisions being made by the leaders that hold the powers under this order. You are the voice for We the People and we are questioning orders that defy science and facts and logic and do more harm than good. This is the first time in history where we have used children to protect adults. It is time for us as adults to now let go of the fear and look at the truth and start standing up for and protecting our children. Not from the sniffles, but from policies that keep them out of school, derail their development and learning and damage their mental health.
WE CALL FOR THE FOLLOWING :
1 - We urge an immediate end to this perpetual state of emergency. 2 - We urge that children, our least vulnerable group, have all restrictions removed for them. No more mandatory masking, no more testing, let them lead normal lives. The time of them carrying the burden for adults is over.
3 - We urge the removal of mandates for the majority of COVID policies in public including masking, mandatory vaccines and boosters. THEY SHOULD ALL BE OPTIONAL. You want to wear a mask - great.
You want a booster - go for it. Feb 15 the state mandate lapses - the mandate must end. 1 02/14/2022
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4 - We urge PPHD to refocus its efforts where they will do the most good - protecting the vulnerable, and offering therapeutics for people who contrac t symptoma tic COVID.
Sincerely ,
Page Malloy
· Pasadena, CA 91106 Constituent
Prepared by OneClickPol itics (tm) at www.onec lickpo litics.com. OneClick.Politics provides online communicatio ns tools for supporte rs of a cause, issue, organizat ion or association to contact their elected officia ls. For more information regarding our policies and services , please contac t info@oneclickpo litics.com 2 02/14/2022
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