Macon Reporter

State Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) is pushing back against masking at local schools after Decatur Public Schools suggested masking for all students, teachers and visitors.

“I am not surprised the Decatur schools are again talking about masks,” Caulkins told the Macon Reporter.

“The masking of children at school did more harm than good – especially for kids in the younger grades and most of them never wore the masks properly in the first place.”

“COVID-19 will always be here but thankfully the newer strains of the disease appear to be weaker than the original virus. There will always be a risk of disease from airborne illnesses, but we have to get back to regular life. We can’t keep walking around with masks on all of the time. It is important to the education of our kids to normalize their classroom experience. We don’t need to bring masks back to school.”

“I would like to see us truly follow the science and put kids’ health before political ideology. What we did to our kids during the pandemic has created all kinds of problems for kids’ mental health and in the end none of it was necessary as kids are at very low risk for COVID-19. We need to factor the complete health of our kids in the decisions we make.”

“There could be a legislative remedy. One thing I would like to see is some legislation to protect the rights of parents. Parents who want to send their kids to school with masks on should have that right and conversely, parents who do not want their kids to be compelled to wear a mask should also have that same right.”

“Illinois is still under a COVID-19 emergency order. It is time for these orders to come to an end and it is time for the Legislature to stand up to the Governor and put an end to the executive orders.”

Decatur Public Schools took to Facebook last week and said “we’re asking that you take the following precautions, " prompting students to start masking again.

“Masks are still HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for all students, staff, parents, volunteers, visitors, and community members to wear when inside all DPS facilities. We encourage you to send your student to school wearing a mask. Masks will also be provided to students when requested,” Decatur Public Schools said on Facebook.

The school included an animation reading “Make sure kids are wearing their masks to school every day!”

Some in the community immediately shot back.

“Face coverings on school children (especially elementary) is NOT a harmless intervention,” Christopher Longo said in response.

The move by Decatur Public Schools comes in the wake of testimony from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s former medical advisor and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fauci gave critical testimony in a lawsuit brought by the state of Missouri challenging social media censorship of those who did not meet the federal government’s narrative regarding masking.

Under testimony in that case Fauci said he could not list a single study that showed the efficacy of masking in public when he ultimately backed mask mandates.

“Were there placebo-based, randomized, double-blind studies of the efficacy of masking that were done between February and April of 2020?” Missouri’s Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked.

“I don't recall. I'd have to go back and take a close look at the literature. I don't recall,” Fauci said.

Based on Fauci’s suggestion many parts of the nation began mandating masks in public and in school settings despite a paucity of data to show even a small difference between masking and not masking or a real threat to school children.

That testimony came right before Twitter began releasing internal files showing massive collusion between the FBI and Twitter to eliminate voices speaking out against masking and Covid vaccines.

In a piece in the Free press, David Zweig described how the FBI and Twitter worked together to change the public narrative over questionable actions, such as wearing a mask to protect against a virus.

“Contractors operating in places like the Philippines were also moderating content,” Zweig wrote. “They were given decision trees to aid in their process, but tasking non-experts to adjudicate tweets on complex topics like myocarditis and mask efficacy data was destined for a significant error rate. The notion that remote workers, sitting in distant cube farms, were going to police medical information to this granular degree is absurd on its face.”

Zweig further noted that the campaign to back the government narrative regarding masking is still having effects, just as it is in Central Illinois.

“This isn’t simply the story of the power of Big Tech or of the legacy press to shape our debate—though it is most certainly that, Zweig wrote.

“In the end, it is equally the story of children across the country who were prevented from attending school, especially kids from underprivileged backgrounds who are now miles behind their more well-off peers in math and English. It’s the story of the people who died alone. It’s the story of the small businesses that shuttered. It’s even the story of the perpetually masked 20-year-olds in the heart of San Francisco for whom there has never been a return to normal.”