A mother in Georgia demanded the lifting of facemask requirement for children in their school district -and has since gained much attention online for it.
In a video tweeted by Errol Webber, captured by Fox News, mom Courtney Ann Taylor delivered an emotional statement before the members of Gwinnett County Board of Education, urging them to stop requiring children from wearing masks.
"Every month I come here, and I hear the same thing - Social and emotional health. If you truly mean that, you would end the mask requirement tonight. Tonight!" she said.
This is Courtney Ann Taylor, a mother in Georgia. She’s one of the many parents who’ve HAD IT with mask mandates, especially for young kids in school.
Share this video! pic.twitter.com/pyG3fYmgVI— Errol Webber (@ErrolWebber) April 22, 2021
She pointed out that children are not vulnerable to the virus but the school did not consider it and regulated the unnecessary measures of making children wear facemasks and prohibiting them from playing together.
The mother revealed that her daughter had been asking her to tell the board that she does not want to wear the mask anymore.
"It is April 15, 2021, and it's time. Take these masks off of my child," she continued.
Anticipating the criticism for going against the directives of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Taylor said that they did not vote for the people in CDC but the five school board members.
"We chose you to make difficult decisions for our children. We chose you to make decisions that would be in our children's best interest," the mother added.
"It has to stop. Take these off of our children," she concluded.
Taylor has since set up a petition on change.org, requesting Gwinnett County Public Schools to make masks optional for kids.
"It is the parent's responsibility to make health decisions for their children. The parents decide which pediatrician they see and which vaccines they receive, so they also decide if their child is going to cover their nose and mouth. Stop trying to parent our children for us," the petition said.
In earlier reports, a study conducted by Stanford University, published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, exposed that medical and non-medical facemasks are not effective in blocking the human transmission of COVID-19, adding that wearing those are actually dangerous to health.
Findings showed that the diameter of SARS-CoV-2 particles are a thousand times smaller than the diameter of facemask thread, thus the virus can easily pass through. Filtration rates of facemasks were also found to be poor.
Further, the study said that wearing facemasks has physiological and psychological effects, as well as potential health consequences.
The physiological effects include hypoxemia, hypercapnia, shortness of breath, increase in lactate concentration, decline in pH levels, acidosis, toxicity, inflammation, self-contamination, increase in stress hormones level (adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol), increased muscle tension and immunosuppression.
While psychological effects are fatigue, activation of "fight or flight" stress response, chronic stress condition, fear, mood disturbances, insomnia and compromised cognitive performance.
Facemask wearers are also at risk of having health consequences such as headaches, anxiety, depression, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer disease, exacerbation of existing conditions and diseases, accelerated aging process, health deterioration, premature mortality and increased predisposition for viral and infection illnesses.