LA reinstates forced masking at private school

A West Hills private day school Monday said it was ordered to impose forced masking by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, signaling a likely return to COVID-19 restrictions for the county.

Los Angeles health authorities have reportedly declared Kadima Day School the site of a COVID-19 outbreak after several students and staff members tested positive for the virus. Ynet News reports that authorities sent a message to the school saying, "Children who do not have masks will not be admitted to class."

School officials then sent a letter to parents notifying them that in addition to mandatory testing, their children will be forced to wear masks indoors for 10 days.

"Unfortunately, this is not a request, or even a recommendation. It is a requirement. As the site of an outbreak, the school risks having the entire campus shut down if we are found to be out of compliance with the order. We are not able to offer exemptions from these rules, or exceptions to them," the letter said.

While the school appeared to blame LA County for the coercive testing and masking, it added, “Exceptions to the mandates will not be entertained.”

The LA County Department of Public Health did not respond to a Frontline News inquiry.

Kadima — which sports an all-female faculty other than its physical education teacher — encourages students to get vaccinated and boosted.

In addition to conclusive evidence dismissing the efficacy of masks, masks have also been shown to harm children’s development. In a study published last year, researchers at Ben Gurion University in Israel and Toronto’s York University found that masks have a devastating effect on children. Specifically, the study found that masks negatively impact children’s "ability to make social interactions with peers and educators, as well as their ability to form important relationships." 

German researchers in April found that extended mask use can cause “verbal motor and overall cognitive performance in children” as well as stillbirths.

A preprint study from the National Institutes of Health published in August 2021 similarly warned that “masks worn in public settings and in school or daycare settings may impact a range of early developing skills, such as attachment, facial processing, and socioemotional processing.”  

Nevertheless, children have been among the first and last populations to be masked. Only in September 2022 did the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) announce its intention to lift the HHS mask mandate for two-year-old children, many months after the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended against masks on children under five. 

At a congressional hearing this June, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra was unable to cite any scientific evidence supporting the forced masking of children but nevertheless claimed it “saved lives.”