I'm really disappointed that England is returning to masking school children, and not just because it entrenches Sturgeon's position on the matter, and will no doubt trigger some nauseating tweets about how she knew it all along and Scottish children never stopped being masked (as if that's a good thing). It's the fact that mask policy is based on the assumption that it works and the desire to be seen to do something rather than on robust real world data about efficacy as it's used in the real world. In fact, you could argue there's strong evidence it does very little if the England vs RUK comparison is anything go go by. In the clamour to 'do something' re COVID there never appears to be any impact assessment of the harms of such measures either. I've never seen any around masks in schools, but there is plenty of evidence that they are damaging to children.
Once again I find myself agreeing with a Tory backbencher:
"But Conservative MP Robert Halfon, chair of the Commons education select committee, said he had worries about the mask policy, telling the BBC that the children's minister had told his committee "there was no evidence of the efficacy of mask wearing".
He said he wanted the education secretary to set out the evidence behind the policy and what the government was doing to assess the impact of it on children's mental health, wellbeing, anxiety and education."
Surely it's not unreasonable to see the evidence that this works and has little impact on children's wellbeing and education, but I'd be willing to bet that such an assessment hasn't been done. Why are the only people challenging this narrative back bench Tories?? Will journalists hound ministers for this evidence, when children's wellbeing us on the line, or do they only do that for houseparties that happened a year ago?