“Why are people choosing to believe one doctor clearly looking for his own fame with his own agenda over doctors with considerably more experience than he has? Dr. Damsker is about my age. He practiced preventive medicine as I do. He’s not an infection disease specialist. He has zero expertise in the field in which is making vastly incorrect conclusions about. Please choose science and please choose to listen to the doctors who are much smarter than Dr. Damsker.”
Dr. Susan Lipson (letter sent to Karen Smith on behalf of Bill Senavaitis)
For over a year now, Dr. David Damsker, Director of the Bucks County Health Department, has endured repeated attacks on his management of COVID-19. These attacks never acknowledge that Bucks County’s metrics are indistinguishable from nearby counties, yet they posit that Dr. Damsker puts Bucks County at risk by using more lenient mitigation strategies than the Pennsylvania Department of Health or CDC. While I agree that “Bucks County’s Health Department goes its own way“, I hope to convince you that Dr. Damsker was right all along, and that the attacks thrown at him have been disingenuous in nature.
Playdate Danger
Since the very beginning, Dr. Damsker’s measured, reasonable approach has been pitted against the shrieking hysteria of those who don’t understand what’s going on. Case in point, Exhibit #1: a March 2020 letter chiding Dr. Damsker for being irresponsible (signed by every Democrat state senator and representative in Bucks County). What was Dr. Damsker doing that was so irresponsible, you might ask? He was suggesting that it’s okay for moms to have playdates for their toddlers.
Ooooooh boy that letter didn’t age well, did it? I mean, playdates lol. The Bucks County Democrats actually thought it was a good idea to write up a whole letter just to bemoan….play dates 😆 .
For reference, on the day that letter was sent (March 20, 2020), Bucks County had a 7-day average of less than 4 COVID cases per day. Less than 4. The same date in 2021 had a 7-day average of…196. Which is more, 4 or 196? Yet on March 20th, 2021, despite having more than 50 times as many daily cases, no Democrat politicians were criticizing play dates. I wonder, why did they change their minds?
While the Bucks County Democrats were being hysterical, Dr. Damsker was being reasonable. This dichotomy, clearly seen at the very outset of the pandemic, would wind up repeating itself over and over.
Senators Steve Santarsiero and Maria Collett, and Representatives John Galloway, Tina Davis, Perry Warren, and Wendy “Political Theater” Ullman (no longer in office), would any of you like to apologize to Dr. Damsker for this ridiculous letter?
Collective Bargaining
On June 15, 2020, Dr. Damsker released official guidance on how Bucks County schools should reopen in the Fall of 2020. This guidance, which would have ensured an accessible in-person education for all Bucks County students, put Dr. Damsker directly in the cross-hairs of the most powerful lobbying group in the country: teachers unions. Teachers unions wanted schools shuttered in order to increase their bargaining power, so they predictably attacked Dr. Damsker’s guidance.
3 vs. 6
In his June 2020 guidance, Dr. Damsker directed Bucks County schools to use 3-ft distance between students rather than the conventionally accepted 6-ft. This is one of the most critical components of his guidance, as most Bucks County schools do not have enough space to open if 6-ft distance is required. The situation is very simple: with a 3-ft requirement, schools can be open; with a 6-ft requirement, they cannot.
The teachers unions understood how critical this 3-ft vs. 6-ft distinction was, and they launched into overdrive attacking Dr. Damsker throughout the Summer and Fall of 2020 for it. They tried to convince every teacher, parent, and school board member in Bucks County that Dr. Damsker was out of his mind; that such guidance would lead to massive outbreaks and death. Unfortunately, their hysteria won out. Most Bucks County school districts decided to forego Damsker’s 3-ft guidance, and instead use the conventional 6-ft. As a result, the majority of Bucks County students started the academic year on Zoom rather than in the classroom.
Now we know–Dr. Damsker was right all along. A study published in March 2021 looked at whether using 3-ft or 6-ft made any difference in the state of Massachusetts. They found no difference at all. Finally, for the first time, we had real-world results from an American school system, disproving the hypothesis that 6-ft distance is safer than 3-ft. The study results took off like wildfire. A week after the study’s publication, the CDC updated their guidance to accept 3-ft as a standard. Finally, America was aligned with the rest of the world (the WHO has always recommended 1-meter, which is 3-ft.).
Of all the attacks launched against Dr. Damsker on this issue, none is more poignant than the Courier Times guest opinion written by Bill Senavaitis. Mr. Senavaitis is the President of the PSEA (teachers union) Mideastern Region. The title of his guest opinion really says it all: “Damsker’s remarks about 3-foot social distancing in schools are harmful“.
“We take issue with the current recommendation of the Bucks County Department of Health
Bill Senavaitis, PSEA Mideastern Region President – July 23, 2020
stating that a safe reopening of our schools can occur with a distance of only three feet
between individuals in school buildings.“
Just like that letter chastising Dr. Damsker for approving of toddler play dates, this guest opinion aged very poorly. Today, there is universal consensus that 3-ft vs 6-ft doesn’t really matter. Dr. Damsker was right; the teachers unions and Team Apocalypse hacks were wrong.
Mr. Senavaitis, would you like to apologize to Dr. Damsker?
Modified Quarantine
So Dr. Damsker was way ahead of the curve in recognizing that 3-ft distance is sufficient, and allows schools to stay open. He showed very similar foresight in pushing for an innovative solution known as “Modified Quarantine” (MQ). MQ is a protocol whereby, under a specific set of circumstances, someone who has been exposed to COVID-19 can continue to attend work or school. This policy requires that the exposed individual stays healthy and wears a mask at all times.
Dr. Damsker instituted MQ early on in the pandemic among Bucks County emergency services such as police and fire crews. This successfully allowed those critical services to stay up and running without any additional transmission occuring. The policy was so wildly successful that it was adopted by local hospitals like Doylestown Hospital, and was even offered to regular Joe Schmoes so that Bucks County citizens could keep working.
Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished. The teachers unions and their cronies came out of the woodwork to attack Dr. Damsker again. They knew that if they didn’t, MQ would make its way into Bucks County schools to help students stay in the classroom where they belong. They knew that MQ represented a threat to their bargaining chips.
So, predictably, throughout the fall, attack after attack was launched against Dr. Damsker’s Modified Quarantine. Coordinated e-mail blitzes were sent to the county commissioners, asking them to fire him. Op-eds went into the local papers. One of my favorites is Matt Groden, a former Bucks County teacher who started a tutoring business. In October, he gathered signatures from local doctors on a letter condeming Dr. Damsker’s use of Modified Quarantine. The reason I love this one so much is that the doctors who responded to me clearly had no idea what Modified Quarantine even is, and apparently none of them stopped to ask Mr. Groden about his obvious conflict of interest, given that his tutoring business is hurt by kids staying in school.
And yet, despite the usual hysteria from the usual suspects, Modified Quarantine just…worked. It continued to work in the adult settings that had used it all along, and it worked in school district after school district that adopted it. The resistance to Modified Quarantine was dealt a final blow in April 2021, when Central Bucks School District voted to finally approve use of it. Today, just a month and a half later, there is no meaningful resistance to the protocol.
Modified Quarantine is used today all up and down the County, and the sky has not fallen. In fact, there is still to this day not a single case of transmission occurring from an individual on MQ. Not one, out of thousands who have been put on the protocol. So, once again, Dr. Damsker was right all along.
Mr. Groden, would you like to apologize to Dr. Damsker, or admit to the public that you had a financial interest in discrediting Modified Quarantine?
Masks: the Final Boss
Of all COVID mitigation strategies, not one has been more contentious than the widespread use of masks and mask mandates. In his June 2020 guidance to schools, Dr. Damsker boldly directed that masks be optional for students. In the end, it didn’t matter because his guidance was superseded just weeks later by the Pennsylvania Department of Health state-wide mask mandate. But was Dr. Damsker wrong?
Well, first, let’s look at results from right here in Bucks County. Faith Christian Academy in Quakertown has been mask optional the entire school year, and an extremely high percentage of students at all grade levels do NOT wear masks at school. If I were to show you the case counts over time at Faith Christian Academy and ask you to distinguish them from the Quakertown Community School District, you wouldn’t be able to do it. They are identical. There has been NO difference between the two school systems, despite QCSD strictly requiring masks on every single child. And lest you think FCA is the only example, I could easily point to several other examples, like Regina Academy at St. John the Baptist, Calvary Baptist School, Trevose Day School, and many daycares & cooperatives.
Now, the real-world results from Bucks County private schools are enough to convince reasonable people–but what about the cries from Team Apocalypse we’ve all grown so fond of: “Follow the Science™!“. These people will believe until the day they die that masks made some type of significant difference, only because the CDC or some other authoritative institution says so. They don’t actually read the scientific evidence; they lazily use argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to authority) specifically so that they don’t have to.
Well, folks, the Science™ has finally caught up. Just one week ago, and for the first time, a major American study has directly compared mask usage in the school setting. You can guess what they found: a big, fat nothingburger. There is absolutely zero correlation between how hard a school is masked up, and how many cases of COVID that school has (either student cases OR teacher cases). This study is a major turning point, just like the Massachusetts study that finally ended the 3-ft vs. 6-ft argument. It shows conclusively that the entire last year of forced masking school children was completely unnecessary–it didn’t make any difference at all.
Every single person who has gone along with the forced masking of school children – don’t even bother apologizing to Dr. Damsker. Just wear your mask forever, so I can know who you are.
Coming To Our Senses
When I look back at all that has transpired, I am dumbfounded that any rational person could still take issue with Dr. Damsker’s measured and reasonable approach. I can certainly understand people using COVID-19 hysteria for their own personal gain, as the Bucks County Democrats, Bill Senavaitis, and Matt Groden tried to do. But I have to believe in my heart of hearts that sensible, unbiased people would look at the real-world outcomes of the last year and plainly understand the reality of the situation. Bucks County COVID metrics are indistinguishable from neighboring counties, despite our children being in school and our residents being at work much more. I noticed this trend early on, and that’s why I wrote a Courier Times op-ed in November defending Dr. Damsker’s approach. Now, exactly six months later, I can safely confirm that Dr. Damsker was right all along.
