This petition goes out to our MNSD school board and superintendent! Although we are not currently under a mask mandate in our school district (which we are ALL grateful for), the August 2021 district newsletter states they will continue to recommend, not require. It goes on to say "mitigation measures may be modified at the discretion of MNS and may be implemented without advanced warning as we moniter various COVID-19 data points." We will NOT stand for our children being put in masks not today, not again!! This petition is a proactive measure to preserve our FREEDOM of choice as we go through the 2021-22 school year and beyond. We are asking for you to STAND up for our kids, families and constitutional rights!

There is a plethora of evidence that supports that masks have never been found effective in fighting respiratory viruses since studies on them started 60ish years ago.

CDC Study, May, 2020

"Although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza."

Mask use in the context of COVID-19 (WHO, December,2020)

"A large randomized community-based trial in which 4862 healthy participants were divided into a group wearing medical/surgical masks and a control group found no difference in infection with SARS-CoV-2 (76)."

Center for Infectious Disease, April 2020

"Sweeping mask recommendations—as many have proposed—will not reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, as evidenced by the widespread practice of wearing such masks in Hubei province, China, before and during its mass COVID-19 transmission experience earlier this year. Our review of relevant studies indicates that cloth masks will be ineffective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, whether worn as source control or as PPE."

Norwegian Institute of Public Health Memo

"Given the low prevalence of COVID-19 currently, even if facemasks are assumed to be effective, the difference in infection rates between using facemasks and not using facemasks would be small. Assuming that 20% of people infectious with SARS-CoV-2 do not have symptoms, and assuming a risk reduction of 40% for wearing facemask, 200,000 people would need to wear facemasks to prevent one new infection per week in the current epidemiological situation."

Florida Study Comparing Masked/Unmasked Counties

"22 of Florida’s 67 counties have a mask mandate. Between May 1 and December 15, there is essentially no difference in population-adjusted cases between masked and unmasked counties: 23 vs 22 cases per 100,000 population. (NOTE: For areas with a mask mandate, the study started counting cases 14 days after the mandate went into effect.)"

CDC Survey P. 4

This survey shows 85% of infected COVID patients said they wore a mask "always" or "often"

University of Oxford Center for Evidence Based Medicine (Oxford is the top-ranked university in the world)

Mask effectiveness is inconclusive at best

Swiss Policy Research August, 2021 (this has links to many other studies as well as helpful comparison graphs)

"In many states, coronavirus infections strongly increased after mask mandates had been introduced. The following charts show the typical examples of Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, the UK, California and Hawaii. Furthermore, a direct comparison between US states with and without mask mandates indicates that mask mandates have made no difference."

New England Journal of Medicine May, 2020

"We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic."