2021-01-04
For all the determination with which masks are being imposed across the world as part of the Covid response, there seems to be very little that has been published concerning the effects of wearing a face-mask on the wearer.
In particular the effects on children do not seem to have been studied. One could reasonably argue that without any standard specification of a face covering such a study would be fairly meaningless, but taken in the round any study which at least attempts to make a sensible contribution to the debate has to be welcomed.
The University of Witten/Herdecke in Germany should therefore be thanked for initiating just such a study, which took the form of a self-selecting survey which parents doctors and others from across the country were invited to complete - this is not a valid basis for a statistically rigorous survey but it is at least a start.
"On 20.10.2020, 363 doctors were asked to make entries and to make parents and teachers aware of the registry"
They seem to have touched a collective nerve:
"By 26.10.2020 the registry had been used by 20,353 people"
Read the report (it's in English).
Is it true that no similar exercise has been undertaken in the UK?
One might also reasonably ask whether any exercise has been undertaken to determine whether the wearing of masks is indeed effective in blocking transmission of the virus - Oh wait - there was a Danish study back in April-May 2020 that was statistically inconclusive. Perhaps not a sufficiently popular area of study to attract funding for further research? Still, with lock-downs apparently set to continue for at least the next three months and possibly more, there would seem to be plenty of opportunity.
