This Viral Video of a Preschooler Being Forced to Wear a Mask Is Infuriating People

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A video of a toddler apparently being forced to wear a protective mask at a New York daycare has gone mega-viral on social media and fueled backlash against mask requirements for children.

SO WHAT

A lot of people are done with taking COVID-19 orders from hypocritical Democratic politicians.

WHAT HAPPENED

A woman named Ann Walker shared the clip to Facebook on Friday, indicating it shows a caregiver at her son’s preschool repeatedly putting a protective mask over his face as he resists and cries.

“This is my poor kid at daycare today so I can work,” Walker wrote of the footage before blasting New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s “ridiculous” new mask mandate for children aged 2 and older at child care centers statewide.

  • Walker later took down the Facebook post, citing unwanted criticism of her son’s daycare, but a version of the video was viewed nearly 5 million times on Twitter over the weekend.
HOW PEOPLE REACTED

Many conservatives on Twitter condemned the videotaped treatment of Walker’s son as as a form of state-sanctioned “child abuse.”

  • Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News host, commented, “This is SO WRONG.”
  • Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said, “This is not science. It’s political virtue signaling. And really cruel to kids.”
  • Andy Grewal, a University of Iowa law professor, linked the video to mask requirements for schoolchildren across the U.S., saying, “This is cruel. Other countries don’t do this to their children.”
  • Bari Weiss, a former New York Times opinion writer, was among those who recalled how Democratic officials have often acted like they’re above the COVID-19 rules they expect others to follow.
MEANWHILE

A New York Post editorial, tweeted Sunday by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Texas, argues that Hochul’s mask mandate for New York preschoolers is “not just senseless but positively harmful” and “politics-driven child abuse.”

“Yes, the Centers for Disease Control bureaucrats — with the White House pushing for advice that will please the teachers unions — recommend masking for all schoolkids (and faculty), even down to preschool,” the editorial board wrote.

  • But the CDC’s own science “failed to show a statistically significant benefit to masking kids in school.”
  • Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has advised against masking children younger than 6, and most European countries have reopened schools without requiring masks.
  • “Young children, as the world has known for months now, just aren’t prone to contract or transmit the coronavirus,” the editors wrote. “Even the few who contract it are rarely symptomatic.”
By We'll Do It Live