Orange County Health Agency Announces Student Contest to ‘Normalize Mask Wearing’

“The Orange County Health Care Agency is launching a Mask Message Contest designed to engage OC students of all grades in an independent project to help normalize mask wearing,” the agency says on its website.

“With many teachers, parents and students struggling with changing school re-opening models, the OC Health Care Agency is offering a fun, creative contest for Orange County students to enter with the chance to win needed technology supplies for their schools.”

If ever there was admission that mask-wearing is not about preventing  Coronavirus, this is it. “Normalizing” mask wearing isn’t normal. Telling healthy people to wear masks and quarantine, isn’t normal. Forcing children to wear face masks isn’t normal. And the people in charge should be scrutinized.

To “help normalize mask wearing” in the community, the Orange County Health Care Agency (OCHCA) in California has launched a contest for students that will award the winners thousands of dollars in technology grants for their schools, Epoch Times reported.

Students are being asked to have fun, get creative, and do their best to “make a project ‘that entertains and educates how awesome wearing a mask can be.’”

“For the projects, students are encouraged either to come up with a mask design that they think everyone will want to wear, explain why wearing a mask is important in a 300 to 400 word essay, or create an original video that shows the benefits of wearing a mask in 60 seconds or less.”

We want this contest to be as inclusive as possible,” said Dr. Clayton Chau, Director of the OC Health Care Agency and County Health Officer. “It is critical that students help to normalize mask wearing and understand the repercussions of a COVID-19 outbreak in the school system. The last thing we want is to have to close classrooms or schools, quarantine or have sick classmates and teachers.”

For Dr. Chau, who specializes in behavioral health, to create a program to “normalize” mask wearing in children, is incongruous. Chau was hired by OCHCA in April 2020. Chau came from Mind OC, which says “We will lead the nation in optimal mental health and wellness for all residents.”

The Orance County Board of Supervisors also threw in for the “normalizing” of mask wearing. But not one of them questioned why masks were key to getting kids back to in-classroom learning. Did they make a deal with the teachers union?

“It is critical that we continue to normalize responsible mask-wearing, particularly among our youth,” said Vice Chairman Andrew Do, First District, who launched the MaskUpOC contest in his district earlier this summer. “While every child is different, a lot of the times students may have an easier time adjusting to wearing a face mask when they see their classmates wearing one. I look forward to seeing all the artistic submissions from our youth.”

“We are counting on Orange County school children and teens to do everything they can to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, so we can get our County to the next tier level and open more schools for in-person learning,” said OC Board of Supervisor Chairwoman Michelle Steel.

“As I mentioned in a recent newsletter, many students and especially disadvantaged children need access to full-time school resources, so anything our Board can do to help promote safely re-opening our schools and economy, I’m all for it,” said Third District Supervisor Donald P. Wagner. “This is a creative way for students to help educate themselves and others on the simple steps we can take to keep each other safe.”

Fourth District Supervisor Doug Chaffee added, “This contest will not add additional burdens to our hard-working educational professionals. Rather, it’s designed as an independent study project that students are encouraged to complete all on their own. We’ve reached out to the Orange County Department of Education and they are fully supportive.”

Fifth District Supervisor Lisa A. Bartlett added, “I am very excited about this program and the opportunity it provides for our youth to express their creativity and, at the same time, deliver a very important message – please wear a mask! This is a great way for students to help their school earn valuable technology grants and have a fun time doing it!”

Have these elected County Supervisors ignored the studies clearly showing that children are not spreaders, and in a large study in Dresden, found that children may act as a brake on the virus.

Additionally, there is the recent CDC study which found that 85% of those studied who contracted Coronavirus wore a mask “all of the time” or “nearly all of the time.”