Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's a great pleasure to continue on with this.
Just before I get started, I want to editorialize a bit, perhaps, in terms of admonishing my colleague for his factional line of accusations with respect to vaccines. Once again, we need to understand that those who are vaccine-hesitant need not be divided and conquered and admonished for their choices. They need to be encouraged. They also need to be educated. To continue with this, as I said, factional line of accusation is not helpful.
That being said, Ms. Wilson, I think that when we originally designed this study, we really knew it was important to begin to understand the effects on speech language acquisition with respect to masking and COVID. That's where we started with this study. I realize that it has morphed into something else. However, I think it's germane that we undertake that line of questioning, especially with something we have never faced before.
Often people want to place a tinfoil hat on my head and say, “Why are you talking about this? This is not an issue,” etc. However, if we do not delve into this deeply, my fear, of course—and hopefully it's shared by a multitude of my colleagues—is to understand.... Are they bad for kids in their language acquisition? We don't know the answer to that. Perhaps you and Ms. Carey could help shed some light on that, or perhaps on what direction we need to take in the future.
Thank you.