Fact check: masks do not cause dangerous carbon dioxide accumulation to children

2021-11-26 09:15:03 By : Ms. Katherine ZHU

The TikTok video shows a blond child wearing a white mask. On her left, an orange device is taking a reading.

"1,376. 1,536. 1,769," said a voice in the clip. "2,125. So remember: anything over 2,000 is unacceptable."

The text overlaid on the video is "Carbon dioxide content in children's masks" and "Uncover your child's masks".

The clip was posted on Facebook on October 27 by Robert Clancy, an Australian pastor with more than 63,000 followers. Clancy wrote in his headline: "Any carbon dioxide concentration higher than 2000 ppm is (sic) dangerous!"

"Will you be affected in the same way?!" he wrote. "Think calmly! #SaveOurChildren."

Clancy's posts accumulated more than 22,000 views in two days. According to social media insight tool CrowdTangle, similar claims have accumulated tens of thousands of interactions on Facebook and Instagram.

But the post is wrong. Public health agencies refuted similar claims a few months ago. Experts said that all available evidence suggests that masks are safe for children.

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Layla Kwong, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an email: “There seems to be no conclusive evidence to support the claim that wearing masks exposes children to large amounts of carbon dioxide.”

USA Today contacted Clancy for comment.

Public health officials, independent fact-checking organizations and experts who have studied masks say they will not cause children to inhale dangerous levels of carbon dioxide.

"Using medical masks for a long time may make people feel uncomfortable. However, it does not cause carbon dioxide poisoning or hypoxia," World Health Organization spokesperson Tarik Jašarević (Tarik Jašarević) in an email Said in. "When putting on a medical mask, make sure it fits and is tight enough so that you can breathe normally."

CO2 readers as depicted in the video can be purchased online or in some hardware stores. But experts say they are not the best way to measure fluctuations in carbon dioxide levels.

"There are two problems," Dr. Susan Hopkins, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, said in an email, who studied the effects of masks on lung function. "You didn't make a correct comparison, that is, to measure directly on the mouth without wearing a mask and wearing a mask. And you don't have a device that has the sensitivity to make the measurement in the first place."

Hopkins said that a device like the one depicted in the TikTok video is designed for "steady-state conditions," such as measuring the carbon dioxide level in a room.

"You can't actually see the carbon dioxide concentration that this person is stimulating through the device — you can only see some kind of average between the carbon dioxide concentrations they breathe in and exhale," she said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends on its website that “all people aged 2 years or older who have not been fully vaccinated should wear masks in indoor public places.” This is mainly because masks can prevent respiratory droplets from spreading to other people. Then these people may be infected with COVID-19.

The CDC refutes the claim that wearing a mask will increase the amount of carbon dioxide inhaled.

"Carbon dioxide molecules are much smaller than viruses and can easily pass through any cloth mask material," the CDC wrote in a December tweet.

A study widely cited as evidence of the potential harm of children wearing masks was withdrawn in July. Other studies have found that masks commonly used during the pandemic, including cloth face masks and surgical masks, do not affect oxygen intake. Some studies have found that even wearing a mask during exercise does not affect lung function.

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Seshadri Ramkumar, professor of environmental toxicology at Texas Tech University, said in an email: “In these areas where the instrument (in the video) is used, there is (a) a logical opportunity to record the exhaled carbon dioxide.” “But research Did not show any shocking effects."

According to our research, we believe that masks can bring dangerous levels of carbon dioxide to children is wrong. Experts say that using the kind of equipment depicted in the video is not a reliable way to measure changes in carbon dioxide levels. Public health agencies recommend that children over 2 years old wear masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Studies have shown that masks do not cause dangerous carbon dioxide accumulation.

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Our fact-checking work was partially funded by Facebook.