The Ciattarelli campaign isn’t backing down in the face of Democrat criticism after staking out a firm position against compulsory K-12 masks, Save Jerseyans.
This Wednesday, ex-Assemblyman and Murphy challenger Jack Ciattarelli attended a Toms River Board of Education meeting and received a loud and positive ovation after urging the board to resist mandatory masks.
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Here’s some video:
https://twitter.com/Sheepdogs1984/status/1428165146904604681
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Toms River’s BOE is one school district – but not the only one – that’s petitioned the Murphy Administration in recent days asking the governor to rescind his statewide mandate.
“Local districts should be allowed to decide what is in the best interests of their students and parents and guardians must be able to raise their children in a manner they deem appropriate,” the board wrote.
“It is the position of the Board that Executive Order 251 must be rescinded or otherwise amended to reflect the fundamental rights, laws and responsibilities vested with local school districts and parents and guardians,” the board’s letter continues.
“No one has said the times we are in are easy, but we are still a democracy,” Ciattarelli told the board during his remarks. “And in a democracy parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit.”
“The data’s pretty clear. Masks inhibit learning, and as your letter mentions, masks adversely affect the quality of a child’s education,” Ciatarelli added. “They can have an adverse effect on the intellectual and emotional development of the child.”
New Jersey Democrats naturally seized upon Ciattarelli’s remarks to accuse the GOP gubernatorial nominee of ignoring science, a familiar refrain from the Left in the age of covid.
“Jack Ciattarelli isn’t a doctor — he’s a career politician and a COVID-denier, anti-vaxxer, anti-masker conspiracy theorist who cares much more about catering to his extreme base than he does about public health,” said NJDSC Executive Director Saily Avelenda. “New Jersey needs a leader that we can trust and who tells the truth — that’s Governor Murphy. Jack Ciattarelli has proven with this remarkably dangerous comment that he’s unfit to be governor.”
Of course, opposing mandatory masks for schools kids is hardly a “conspiracy theory.”
A number of prominent medical professionals have spoken out against masking school children.
“There is no consensus among top scientists and doctors about the efficacy of masks for school children,” said Stami Williams, Ciattareill communications director. “Doctors from Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, Oxford and Harvard have all publicly stated their belief that masks may hurt a child’s mental health more than it helps protect their physical health. Therefore, whether or not children wear masks in school should be up to the parents and local communities to decide, not a one-size-fits-all, Trenton-knows-best mandate from Governor Murphy. To many people, this feels like the next step towards another lockdown, which is unacceptable and Jack won’t let Governor Murphy bully us into one without a fight.”
“The scientific evidence is clear,” wrote Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, in an April 2021 op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. “Consider a study from Iceland conducted early in the epidemic when masking was uncommon. The study used a representative sample to track the source of Covid infections. The authors used contact-tracing methods paired with genetic sequencing analysis to establish precisely how the disease spread. The senior author of the study, Kari Stefansson, later told reporters that “even if children do get infected, they are less likely to transmit the disease to others than adults. We have not found a single instance of a child infecting parents.” Many studies in the scientific literature reach a similar conclusion: Even unmasked children pose less of a risk for disease spread than adults.”
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