Leon County, Florida School Board member Roseanne Wood announced she has tested positive for COVID, and she blames unvaccinated, unmasked attendees at a school board meeting for her positive COVID infection.
Wood specifically notes she was wearing her mask and has received her vaccine, yet she still tested positive.
“I was masked at the school board meeting,” Wood said. “I didn’t have COVID. People weren’t. They were close to me and claimed they were not vaccinated.”
The meeting Wood is referencing is a July 27 meeting where parents and community members came and expressed their desire to see no mask mandate implemented in Leon County’s public schools.
“They wanted to tell us about freedom and liberty,” Wood said. “I just want to tell them I need my freedom and liberty and happiness which means to be healthy.”
The debate around mask mandates for students in Florida has escalated in recent days, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issuing an executive order banning school districts from implementing mask mandates.
After multiple school districts announced they are defying DeSantis’ order, and Leon County Superintendent Rocky Hanna issued a letter to DeSantis asking for school districts to be allowed to make decisions on masking for themselves, DeSantis slightly stepped back by saying mask mandates could take place as long as a parent permission form is permitted.
Despite the overwhelming consensus from government officials at the federal, state, and local levels, a study released from the University of Louisville as recently as May 2021 shows face masks did nothing to reduce COVID transmission rates.
“Our findings do not support the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 transmission rates decrease with greater public mask use,” says the study. In fact, the adverse effects of wearing a mask for prolonged periods of time could increase bacterial infection risk.
“Prolonged mask use (>4 hours per day) promotes facial alkalinization and inadvertently encourages dehydration, which in turn can enhance barrier breakdown and bacterial infection risk. British clinicians have reported masks to increase headaches and sweating and decrease cognitive precision. Survey bias notwithstanding, these sequelae are associated with medical errors. By obscuring nonverbal communication, masks interfere with social learning in children. Likewise, masks can distort verbal speech and remove visual cues to the detriment of individuals with hearing loss; clear face-shields improve visual integration, but there is a corresponding loss of sound quality.”
The first ecological study of state mask mandates and use to include winter data:
"Case growth was independent of mandates at low and high rates of community spread, and mask use did not predict case growth during the Summer or Fall-Winter waves."https://t.co/FAyieg02tJ pic.twitter.com/FVaDF112Q0
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) May 25, 2021
The Louisville study reflects another study from National Center for Biotechnological Information published in November 2020 on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) website, which said data backing the notion that face masks prevent COVID transmission is “lacking.”
“Although, scientific evidence supporting facemasks’ efficacy is lacking, adverse physiological, psychological and health effects are established,” the study said.
After the NIH study began attracting national attention, the study was pulled from its website.
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Grant Holcomb is a reporter at the Florida Capital Star and the Star News Network. Follow Grant on Twitter and direct message tips.
Photo “Rosanne Wood” by Rosanne Wood.
