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July 9, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – A soon to be published long-term study involving 90 second and third-grade children in central France has revealed a spectacular decline in physical and cognitive capacities during COVID-19 lockdowns. “The numbers are catastrophic,” according to Martine Duclos, head of the sports medicine department of the University Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand and director of the National Observatory of Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviors (ONAPS).
The implications of the situation are indeed dire. Obesity and sedentarism are expected to lead to an increase in chronic diseases in this population in years to come.
The study was initiated in September 2019, months before France’s first lockdown that led to the closure of schools and “stay-at-home” orders in mid-March, 2020, giving the researchers the ability to compare “before and after” data within a stable set of youngsters in primary schools in Vichy (24,000 inhabitants) and Riom (19,000 inhabitants).
Among the most serious effects of almost two months of total lockdown for these children aged between 7 and 9 were weight gain, shortness of breath and an average loss of cognitive capacity of 40 percent between September 2019 and September 2020.
In one year, the children’s body mass index – which measures corpulence – went up by 2 to 3 points on average, with negative consequences for their fitness. “We’ve never seen anything like this. Sporty kids without any health or weight issues gained between 5 and 10 kilograms because they stopped practicing their sport. And not all have resumed any kind of physical activity,” said Duclos.
Speaking with Le Monde, she described how many now have difficulty running fast between pads placed 10 meters apart. The researchers used this classic shuttle run test that measures oxygen take-up capacity and found that “some children, already badly out of breath, did not manage to reach the first pad before the first beep.” This was also unprecedented, she underscored, adding that some were now incapable of doing a motor skills course, in which they are expected to complete a timed obstacle race.
Measurement of the 2nd and 3rd-graders cognitive capacity was accomplished using a number of simple exercises such as asking the children to connect letters with numbers in alphabetical order within a given time. All succeeded this test in September 2019. One year later, a large proportion were unable to finish within the set time limit, leading Martine Duclos to comment: “One year of confinement has had catastrophic results, at a crucial point of neural plasticity.”
PETITION UPDATE (8/27/2020)
Thank you for continuing to SIGN and SHARE this petition, which asks policymakers at all levels of government to reverse mandatory mask orders within their borders.
Facebook has restored the share link for this petition, saying that the decision to block it was a 'mistake...'
Please share with your Facebook friends, but we should all take heed of this warning: when an organization or individuals have to beg, plead and cajole just to express objective truths, it may be time to start looking for other social networking platforms.
Facebook needs to treat its users with respect, no matter their political persuasion. Moreover, Facebook needs to treat objective reality and facts with more respect.
One-size-fits-all oppressive government mask mandates must stop!
Healthy adults and children should not be forced - by the state - to wear masks when the risk of infection is low and the benefit of wearing a mask is highly questionable.
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PETITION UPDATE (8/25/2020)
Facebook is actively censoring this petition, saying that some people find it 'abusive.'
How anyone could find alternate facts about oppressive mask mandates 'abusive' is incredible...that is, impossible to believe.
This is exactly the kind of censorship which Big Tech is getting a bad reputation for.
The fact that Facebook calls differing opinion and objective reality "abusive" says a lot about Facebook and their agenda to silence reason and logic, not just conservatives and Christians.
But, people are more intelligent than Facebook give them credit for.
And, the more this continues, the more reasonable people will look alternate platforms to share their thoughts and connect with their friends and family. The more that happens, the less revenue Facebook will generate.
All of us have a decision to make, and the time is coming where we might have to tell our Facebook friends that we are moving to another platform.
We are encouraging people to continue SIGNING this petition and SHARING it via other platforms such as Parler and Gab, and to share the link below with your family and friends on Whatsapp, Telegram, Threema and Signal.
Thank you!
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One-size-fits-all oppressive government mask mandates must stop!
Healthy adults and children should not be forced - by the state - to wear masks when the risk of infection is low and the benefit of wearing a mask is highly questionable.
Please SIGN this petition which asks policymakers at all levels of government to reverse mandatory mask mandates within their borders.
Public health policies should be based on science and logic, not on the type of political posturing and virtue-signaling which led Joe Biden to recently call for a national mask mandate.
And, public health policies certainly shouldn't lead to a situation where more people could become sick.
But, that is exactly what these mandatory mask mandates are doing.
Here are four inconvenient facts about masks:
1) Masks** are largely ineffective at stopping the transmission of viruses.
The vast majority of masks worn by the public are made from material which cannot filter-out viruses because virus particles are too small to catch or obstruct. Wearing cloth masks to stop a virus is like putting a bee in a bird cage to keep it from flying away.
Wearing a mask for long periods of time ensures that the wearer has a warm and moist receptacle around his or her mouth, on which viruses and bacteria can land and accumulate.
Thus, masks are actually likely to have little effect in stopping the spread of COVID-19 acting as a barrier, but could actually make things worse acting as a receptacle.
2) Mandates which call for masks to be worn outdoors are both absurd and oppressive.
3) There are clearly documented hazards of wearing masks for long periods of time.
4) And, since school is on everyone's mind...
Notwithstanding the above information on the ineffectiveness of most masks against viruses, we don't know if asymptomatic children can even transmit the virus.
But, it was a reported in an article in the July 21, 2020 Uk Times that: "There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the UK government's leading scientific advisers."
And, we also know that children are extremely unlikely to get seriously ill or die from COVID infections. In any case, children cannot possibly be expected to wear a mask properly in a way that would cut transmission.
There are still a lot of unknowns about COVID-19, but we have grown in our understanding of this disease since the beginning of the crisis.
The knowledge we have gained should allow government and health authorities to make more nuanced policies than the current one-size-fits-all mask mandates.
Where are the legislative hearings in county commissions, and state, provincial or federal legislatures before these drastic actions are mandated? Where are the open and transparent debates among experts that provide our representatives with the necessary information to make good policy decisions?
The real pandemic is the panic and the resulting tyranny that is being caused by dictatorial governors, corporate media and the monopolistic Big Tech.
The truth is that COVID-19 is like a bad cold for most people; this is not ebola or the plague.
Of course, the very elderly and those with serious health conditions should take precautions or be quarantined, but the rest of society should begin the long process of returning to normality.
The frenzy to force everyone to wear a mask, at all times, has gone beyond all comprehension, and goes against science and logic.
Please SIGN this petition which asks policymakers at all levels of government to reverse any mandatory mask order within the borders of their county, state, province, or country.
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'Explosion in mandatory masking isn’t driven by science, but fear', PART I - https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/explosion-in-mandatory-masking-isnt-driven-by-science-but-fear
'Explosion in mandatory masking isn’t driven by science, but fear', PART II - https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/explosion-in-mandatory-masking-isnt-driven-by-science-but-fear-part-ii
OSHA Document on Surgical Masks and Respirators stating that surgical masks do NOT prevent airborne particles (e.g. viruses) from being inhaled - https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3219.pdf
'PETER HITCHENS: Face masks turn us into voiceless submissives - and it’s not science forcing us to wear them, it’s politics' - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8537489/PETER-HITCHENS-Face-masks-turn-voiceless-submissives.html
**Here, we are referring to the masks worn by the vast majority of the public, not to specialist masks or respirator-type masks.
***Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
To be precise, only about two months of the researched period (from March 2020 to September 2020) were during full lockdown; after classes resumed in primary schools, there were still restrictions on collective and indoor sports, public swimming baths and the like. The time segment also included two months of summer vacation. Wearing masks at school all day, including during recess outdoors, only became compulsory for the 6-11 age group as of November 2020.
According to a previous study by ONAPS published last January, only 4.8 percent of the 5-11 age-group (2.8 percent of girls and 6.5 percent of boys) got at least one hour of daily physical activity during the first confinement, while only 0.6 percent of teenagers (11 to 17 -year-olds) reached this recommended level of physical activity (as compared with an already meagre pre-lockdown proportion of 13 percent).
At the same time, multiple studies in various countries quoted a rise in screen time among 60 percent of children and adolescents, with teleworking of adults appearing as an aggravating factor. 25 percent of children under 6 years of age spent less time in active play (but 50 percent spent more, according to their parents) during lockdown. School is compulsory in France from ages 3 to 16.
The report concluded: “How can one be surprised at these reports that clearly show a decrease in physical activity and an increase in sedentarism when even before COVID-19… the majority of our children and adolescents already failed to respect recommendations. The setting up of a lockdown, which de facto set a limit on social interaction and physical liberties, could do nothing else than reinforce this alarming situation and make it worse.” Its authors expected that the second French lockdown in France, albeit less severe, would reveal similar deterioration; they stressed the need for further research into these periods of time.
More largely, a study published online by ONAPS last February assessing all age-groups quoted the following worrying results:
Forty-two percent of children, 58.7% of adolescents, 36.4% of adults, and 39.2% of older people had reduced physical activity levels. Particularly, active transportation and endurance practices showed a significant decrease, while domestic, muscular strengthening, and flexibility activities increased. Sitting time and screen time increased, respectively, in 36.3% and 62.0% of children, 25.5% and 69.0% in adolescents, 24.6% and 41.0% in adults, and 36.1% and 32.1% in seniors.
But instead of noting that lockdowns do more harm than good and could lead to lasting and widespread damage in large sectors of the population, and therefore urging the authorities not to have recourse to such measures again, the authors concluded that the population simply needed to alter its behavior during future lockdowns.
The COVID-19 confinement period led to important modifications in individual movement behaviors at all ages, particularly favoring decreased physical activity and increased sedentariness. These findings suggest that the authors need to inform and encourage people to maintain and improve their physical activities and to change their sedentary time habits during post-confinement and during the period of a potential future lockdown.
In other words, the authors suggest that yet more government messaging and recommendations should accompany existing COVID measures and take for granted that further lockdowns are on the cards.