Secondary-school children returning to school from 8 March will be required to wear masks in classrooms, at least for several weeks. That is in contrast to the initial return of children to school last summer. It wasn’t until November that they were required to wear masks at school, and then only in corridors and other communal areas.
But should we be forcing children to wear masks? A German study – in a preprint which has yet to be peer-reviewed – has reported negative symptoms of children who wear masks in that country.
As the researchers point out, there is a lack of evidence on the use of masks in school
Last autumn, researchers at the University of Witten/Herdecke set up a registry for parents, teachers and doctors to report their observations of children wearing masks at school. After a week it had received 20,353 entries, referring to 25,930 children aged 0 to 18.
The researchers then analysed the results of the 17,854 entries which had been made by parents.
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