Letter to the Local School Board
Written last year from concern that mandates could return, fear that seems all too reasonable.
“Be sure to wear your mask at all times.”
I currently work for a public school in Union County, NJ. New Jersey has an active medical freedom movement and avoided some of the extremist Covid measures of my home state of New York—but fears stoked by the CDC still meant that most northern NJ school buildings were frequently being shut down over Covid cases a full year after the start of the state of emergency.
My own building opened up permanently, without any Covid interruptions, in Fall 2022. The school continued to be plastered wall-to-wall with pandemic-era posters though, such as the one shown above. I was relieved that the mandates weren’t being enforced, but as the year progressed I had to wonder why the signs were still there at all. Children these days are confused enough about the norms of society—they don’t need to have a prominent posting of “rules” that the institution has no intention of upholding.
To end all confusion, and make sure that medical repression was really behind us, I decided to request that the signs to be taken down, and the rationale behind the destructive policies be officially repudiated. As the pubic health establishment has given indications that it may re-institute mandates in the near-future, I’m reproducing the letter I sent, which I read in part at a public meeting, [1] as possible inspiration for those thinking of taking similar civic action.
***
To the Roselle Public School Community:
I am writing to you as an educator and community member with a request that you remove misleading and non-constructive Covid signage from our schools. I am also asking you to affirm the rights of all public school stakeholders to exercise rights over their own bodies in relation to public health policies.
Attached are photographs of two signs which are presently posted in at least one school. The first sign directs the viewer to always maintain “6 feet of space from others.” The six feet directive from the national Centers for Disease Control was made under the pretext that the coronavirus was only spread by saliva droplets, and that these droplets seldom traveled beyond six feet. It was subsequently proven that the coronavirus is aerosolized, and the distance between people is not relevant for transmission indoors. Furthermore, effective educational and social activities for our students would not be possible if this six feet rule were enforced. Since it is not being enforced, since it is not supported by science, and since it potentially obstructs our educational mission, it is not appropriate that the sign be posted.
The second sign—actually a large banner—states, along with other directives, “Be sure to wear your mask at all times.” There are no randomized control studies to support the theory that cloth masks prevent Covid-19. The Cochrane Library, the most respected source of systematic reviews in healthcare concluded that there was no proof that any type of mask stopped the spread of respiratory viruses in a community setting. Since this directive is also not being enforced, and since it is not proven by the science, it is not appropriate that this sign be posted.
One might ask: Why go to the trouble to make this request since the President of the United States is now withdrawing the federal Covid State of Emergency? There is reason to believe that unless pro-active intervention is made from below, then many officials will uphold their prerogative to impose similar states of emergency which will have destructive consequences for education and social life generally. One indication of this is that the Justice Department continues to appeal the injunction against President Biden’s federal airline mask mandate, even as the state of emergency is being withdrawn. Another is that there is evidence presented by a New Jersey senator that the governor intends to employ CDC recommendations to mandate the Covid vaccine for school children. [2]
Recently, two health experts associated with Rutgers University published a statement in a leading medical journal regarding the consequences of the social distancing theory:
“For children, the collateral damage of the COVID-19 pandemic response has been considerable: ‘nearly insurmountable’ educational losses, deteriorating mental health, low routine childhood vaccination rates, 39 billion missed school meals by January 2021 and millions of estimated life-years lost among students in the USA alone.”
They added that “child abuse is another negative side effect of COVID-19 lockdowns.” There was a documented “increase in the proportion of child abuse-related hospitalization in the USA,” even as there were lowered real-time reports of child abuse in the community; This could only be explained by children losing access to the watchdog functions of the public school system. The two Rutgers-associated scholars—one of them a pediatrician—observed that “While it was certain that school closures would have profound social and economic costs, it remains uncertain whether they have any effect on COVID-19 transmission.” [3]
Despite this grave medical injustice, the political and public health establishments have not admitted fundamental wrongdoing, and continue to embrace the corrupt doctrine that underlies social distancing, mandates, and official misinformation. These wrongdoings are not well-publicized, but they are well-documented. Here is a small sample of some of the most egregious instances:
1. A Cambridge University-published study found that the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases (run by Anthony Fauci) delivered a “10-fold mortality overestimation” on Covid projections to Congress in March 2020. This was the rationale for the “campaign of social distancing” throughout the country, and eventually a state of emergency.4
2. In May 2021, The New York Times published a story entitled “A Misleading CDC Number” It found that CDC had overestimated the risk of outdoor transmission of the virus at least tenfold, and probably a hundredfold.5 This misinformation led to the closure of outdoor parks, which may have been some of the safest places to be in 2020, given that most transmission took place in the home. Many who adopted reclusive lifestyles in response to CDC advice succumbed to deadly addictions and chronic disease because of it. (For instance, more Americans under 65 died of alcohol poisoning in 2020 than died of Covid.) 6
3. A study by three university medical professors found that the CDC has a pattern of exaggerating Covid dangers not only in its recommendations, but in the very statistical data it presents to the public. “Many instances of misinformation from the CDC were related to pediatric mortality data, exaggerating the impact of COVID-19 in children. While the European CDC provided reassuring data on SARS-CoV-2 in children, the errors we found show the US CDC has overstated risks.” After the fabricated data was pointed out to the agency by independent experts, the CDC was slow to correct it.7 The study builds on a leading medical journal’s report which found that the CDC had exaggerated Covid deaths in children “by more than 70,000.” 8
The current Roselle Schools policy (“LEA Plan for Safe Return to In-Person Instruction and Continuity of Services”, Dec 2022) repeatedly states that is it “committed to maintaining in-person instruction” but also repeatedly says that the District “follows the guidance of the CDC.” Based on the evidence above, it is clear it is not possible to always follow the CDC if one is truly committed to maintaining continuity of educational services. Roselle Public Schools should take CDC guidance as one source of information among many, and obtain the approval of legislative officials and the community before endorsing any of its recommendations.
In states where there is not sustained public and local pushback against arbitrary public health protocols and official misinformation, we continue to see disturbing human rights violations proceeding into the future. In California, San Jose County appears ready to extract over a $1 million in fines from a local church for having violated unscientific health regulations similar to those in expressed in the wall posters. In Suffolk County, NY, an award-winning middle-school teacher is being declared mentally unfit by the Board of Education for having exercised her right not to wear a mask. And in the New York State capital, Governor Hochul is quietly imposing regulations that allow the state to forcibly quarantine any person who tests positive for any condition that it considers to be a public health risk.
The present withdrawal of mandate enforcement in New Jersey is premised on the belief that we have conditional privileges to decline Covid interventions, but not actual rights. I believe all of our public agencies must affirm that it is a right, not a privilege, to decline the use of a medical device, including a mask. It is a right, not a privilege, to refuse a mandate of any kind which is not proven to stop transmission, or where there are safety signals indicating that the risks to an individual outweigh the benefits. Until those rights are recognized by officials, then there is no assurance that our children (or the public generally) are safe from the excesses of the past three years being repeated.
Sincerely,
Garrett Ramirez
Paraprofessional
I presented the letter at the May 18, 2023 meeting of the Board. An audio recording of that meeting was posted to their website in June, but it has been taken down for some reason.
Robert Walker, “New Jersey could soon require COVID-19 vaccines to students, according to legislator,” Shore News Network, May 11, 2023 - https://www.shorenewsnetwork.com/2023/05/11/new-jersey-could-soon-require-covid-19-vaccines-to-students-according-to-legislator/
Wesley J. Park and Kristen A. Walsh, “COVID-19 and the unseen pandemic of child abuse” British Medical Journal Open Pediatrics, August 5, 2022 (British Medical Association)
Ronald B. Brown, “Public Health Lessons Learned From Biases in Coronavirus Mortality Overestimation” Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, Volume 14 , Issue 3, June 2020, pp. 364 – 371. (Cambridge University Press)
David Leonhardt, “A Misleading CDC Number” The New York Times, May 11, 2021
Matt Stieb, “Alcohol Killed More Under-65 Americans Than COVID in 2020” New York magazine, Mar. 22, 2022
Alyson Haslam, Tracy Beth Hoeg, Kelley Krohnert, and Vinay Prasad, “Statistical and Numerical Errors Made by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention During the COVID-19 Pandemic” - Social Science Research Network, March 7, 2023 (Elsevier)
Jennifer Block “Covid-19: US Tracker Overestimated Deaths Among Children” The British Medical Journal (BMJ), March 29, 2022
Great letter that's as timely today as it was when read at the Roselle school board meeting in May. Garrett is perhaps the best researcher of anyone I know, and I for one am grateful to have his voice -and immense expertise- speaking truth to power in these strange times!