New Data Shows Forcibly Masking Children Made No Difference In Florida

COVID-19 cases have plummeted throughout the state of Florida, and new data shows virtually no difference exists between masked and unmasked school districts in terms of cases.

Governor Ron DeSantis released the numbers via his press secretary, Christina Pushaw.

According to the press release, new COVID-19 cases for children ages 5-17 have decreased 79 percent in the month of September in the 54 Florida counties where school districts have no masking policy or are following state law by honoring the parental opt-out rule. In the 13 districts that demanded child-masking in schools, case rates have dropped 77 percent—slightly less, actually, than unmasked districts.

COVID positivity rates declined at a rate of 65 percent for unmasked districts, as compared to 67 percent for masked. Put simply, the data for this school year shows no benefit to forced masking in pediatric age groups in terms of either case rate or positivity rate.

As for statewide rates as a whole, Florida now boasts the nation’s second-lowest infection rate in the country at just 27 cases per 100,000 people, all this despite mostly maskless schools and no governmental vaccine mandates.

The data continues to prove that the virus posed little to no statistical risk of serious harm to children, and that children were never a significant transmitter of the virus to adults.