Surgeon General Spreads Lies to Keep Kids Masked in School

CLAY: I think it’s important that we call out lies when they occur, and we try to do that on a regular basis. And I think the worst kind of lie is one that is designed to inflame fear, because there is so much lying going on on a day-to-day basis that it is hard not to at times get overwhelmed and just sit back and say, what is the actual truth? Which is why, Buck, if you and I — and we’ve talked about this on the show before — if we get a fact wrong, like, we feel sick to our stomachs —

BUCK: I’m embarrassed.

CLAY: — on this show. Yes.

BUCK: I’m embarrassed.

CLAY: If we get a fact wrong. And look. Opinions — there’s a big difference between a fact and an opinion. But when you are a public health authority — and you — and Buck and I look at all the data, we know everybody’s busy, we look at all the data on masking. We pay attention to it. But we feel sick to our stomachs if we get a fact wrong and, if we do, we come back and say, hey, we told you this. It turns out that did not end up being true. It’s what we try to do. That’s our promise to you. One of the things that I think is the most infuriating, and there are a lot of things about covid that are infuriating on public health officials who should know better continuing to sell us things that are factually untrue and not supported by the data. So I’m gonna play the falsehood first. I want to make it clear, this is not true, okay?

This is not accurate. And then we’re going to bring you the actual truth on the flip side in the next segment. But first let’s play cut 2 from Vivek Murthy who is trying to argue that masks make sense and that they make us all safer. This is the Surgeon General of the United States, Vivek Murthy.

MURTHY: And I worry about efforts in — in some states and some localities to — to move schools away from universal mask requirements and testing because we have seen now that schools that have universal masking in place are much, much less likely and more than three and a half times less likely to have outbreaks in schools compared to schools that don’t have masking rules. This is our kids’ health that’s at stake. We’ve gotta take every measure to make sure they’re okay.

BUCK: No. No —

CLAY: That’s a lie.

BUCK: — no. I’m sorry. We’re not gonna let this fly, Clay, right? We’ll come back and give more data on the other side from, you know, a Harvard trained MD who happens to be the surgeon general for the state of Florida. Maybe he knows something. Maybe he knows something.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

BUCK: We just played before in case you missed it the Surgeon General, Murthy, for the United States government, making a claim, making a claim that schools that don’t have mask mandates have 3.5 times the covid outbreaks of schools with mask mandates. I’ve looked at this study, and this is what it says on The Hill about it. “Out of the 191 schools in Maricopa and Pima counties in Arizona that experienced outbreaks by the end of August, 59.2% did not have a mask requirement compared to 8.4% that required masks from the start of the school year.” So they’re doing this from August. “This almost a third of outbreaks occurred in schools that implemented mask mandates asp the school year began.” Clay there’s no control group.

CLAY: It’s nonsense.

BUCK: It’s complete garbage. The study the surgeon general is citing is complete garbage. Here’s the Surgeon General at the — this is why they never want — we actually said this here on the show that one of the reasons there was such opposition to mask choice for kids in Florida schools was Florida would keep real data and there would be a control group —

CLAY: They did not want a control group.

BUCK: — mandated in schools where it was not and you’d be able to look at it. And here is what the Surgeon General of the state of Florida says, Harvard MD, Dr. Joseph Ladapo.

LADAPO: I want you guys to step back for a moment from what you hear sort of constantly on TV. And just very briefly in terms of the data that supports mask use in kids and mask mandates for masks in kids it is very weak and that’s a fact but there’s a substantial began between the quality of the data out there supporting masking kids yielding any benefit for kids whatsoever, factual. What we’re hearing from some of our public health leadership in other states and nationally.

In Florida we’re gonna stay close to the data, and we’re gonna let you know how we feel about the data. And the data do not support any clinical benefit for children in schools with mask mandates. The highest quality data finds no evidence of benefit. And that’s what — and we’re gonna stick with that because that’s what the data show.

BUCK: I mean, Clay, this guy — what, does he not know anything? He’s a Harvard MD. Does he not understand “the science”?

CLAY: Well, we had, you’ll remember the New York Magazine article writer who has been enmeshed in analyzing the data, David Zweig —

BUCK: That’s right.

CLAY: — I believe was his name at New York Magazine. And I would encourage people out there, we have shared this, maybe we can share it from the Clay and Buck Twitter account again, the science on masking children. There is no data out there that legitimately supports masking having any impact at all. And Florida, to your point, is such a great test case scenario because some counties in Florida mandated masks, contrary to what the governor had demanded in terms of parents just having their right to choose. And others did not. And the statistical significance of the two control groups, the masked schools and the nonmasked schools, there was no difference. And that’s because masks don’t work. And that is and remains a significant fact.

So you have the Surgeon General of the United States spreading a lie, propagating a falsehood, and then you have the Surgeon General of the state of Florida, I think both of them, by the way, are Harvard MDs, actually sharing the data from Florida. And remember the biggest study the CDC did was in the state of Georgia, and that was a big part of the science behind the article about masking kids in New York Magazine, David Zweig’s piece, and I think that involved, if I’m not mistaken, Buck, 90,000 kids.

I mean, it was a monstrous control experimental group because a lot of these studies, like, I’m sure the win in Maricopa County or whatever they’re trying to cite are tiny numbers of kids and there’s almost no statistical significance to them. We’ve got the whole state of Florida, we have a huge portion of the state of Georgia both proving that masking doesn’t make sense. And, by the way, we’ve got all these countries overseas that have done studies and their kids aren’t wearing masks.

BUCK: The U.K. has said no masks for kids in schools, they looked at the data. It’s just not there, the numbers aren’t there. Going back to the study, the Surgeon General, oh, he’s an expert, we’re supposed to listen to this guy, ear talking about 21% of these schools had a mask requirement since the beginning of the school year. Thirty percent added one later. Forty-eight percent never mandated masks at all. They have no, they’re just looking at this and, by the way, they only picked 16% of counties to analyze in their own state.

CLAY: They’re cherry-picking.

BUCK: One-fifth roughly of your counties that are changing masks, no masks, maybe masks, and then you’re coming up with this number. It’s absurd. In Florida it’s very straightforward. Some schools had mandates. Some schools did not. Did the schools with mandates do better than the schools without mandates? And, by the way, it’s not a ban on masks. It’s choice. No. You allow children to go to school with the choice, there was no difference statistically whatsoever. They ran the control group study. The mask maniacs are wrong.

But more than anything else, Clay, they’re the people I think who are still terrified. Oh, my gosh. You know, little — little Timmy or little Susie is gonna get covid, and they just can’t look at reality. And then there are the people for whom it’s really just about they don’t want to feel like they’ve been not that smart this whole time, you know, they think —

CLAY: They dont want to admit they were wrong.

BUCK: — was the responsible thing to do. They don’t want to find out at this point, oh, my gosh. I mean, even right now — I’ll tell you this, October 19th a professional at Harvard University’s Chance School of Public Health wrote a piece on how schools should do away with mask mandates by the end of the year. This is just crazy. And we just need to have a decision made, it’s done, end of this year, meaning December, done, no more masks —

CLAY: Christmas break it basically go away.

BUCK: And this is why I think it’s so important. Because that’s what we actually have to do. We actually just have to all come together and agree we’re not doing some of these things anymore. Not maybe we’ll do it again or we’re waiting and let’s check the data and all this other stuff. We have run the experiment, the Fauciites were wrong, end of story. But the pushback on this, as you know, is gonna be fierce because it’s become, it’s not just be about the science as we’ve known all along. It’s about political power and control.

CLAY: Well, and what’s also wild and infuriating about this, Buck, is when you look at it look at, like we said, the data, they’re still saying even with 5- to 11-year-olds being vaccinated, we played this from Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC yesterday, she said masking’s not gonna go away even when people 5 to 11 can get vaccinated. Now, I said I can come after me if you want, and I’m sure people will. I’m not getting my young kids vaccinated for covid because they have no risk of covid, right? I think they’ve already had it. My wife and I have had it, I think they probably have antibodies. I think they’ve been fine. That’s what the data would likely suggest in my own household. But if you are terrified of covid, get your kid vaccinated. That’s your choice. But why in the world should everybody still have to wear masks when anyone can get the vaccine that they want?

BUCK: You know how we say these things and we keep hammering the numbers and the data and we know that this audience — but it’s also important that I feel like we’re equipping, you know, we are a truth force multiplier here on the show. You know, we are, you know, God bless SF guys, Special Forces, but they train indigenous to be able to fight on behalf of U.S. interests. We’re like that with the truth and the data here, right? We’re trying to give people the facts and the numbers so that when they sit down to the Thanksgiving table and someone says, “Oh, my children can’t — they’re at such a risk from covid” and just to remind everybody that it’s not just stuff that we’re saying. We’re not pulling this out of thin air.

This Washington Post article that I just — I mentioned to you, a Harvard public health professor; so usually libs like Harvard. When it goes in their favor they like Harvard. He cites the same, quote, low risk for kids holds true for mortality with a risk for 5- to 11-year-olds has consistently been about one per million. It is a one in a million risk, my friends. We’re not exaggerating. That is the actual mortality risk. So when people think they’re so smart, what about measles, what — the risk of death from measles for a child is one in a thousand.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: That’s very different from one in a million. I think we all understand that.

CLAY: And the one in a million, Buck, I think it’s also important to note, many of those kids have massive underlying medical conditions, right? We’re not talking about young, healthy kids that are dying with covid. Most of the kids that are dying and, I wish there were none, but most of them that are dying are — we shared the data before on the overall cause of mortality among young children. And covid by age range is less than 1% of the cause of death for kids in that age range. It’s wild.

By the way, nearly a third of us — and we’re gonna keep sharing all of this data with you every single days ’cause I do think it’s important, Buck’s point, the force multiplier that we all as a group help to share facts that matter and help to influence our political debates.