or death from covid compared to our wider population. they've also endured the longest period of social isolation, many states, schools were closed for a full 18 months during 2020 and 2021. so as we lift these risk mitigation layers, masking being a prominent one that we're discussing now, kids should really be first in line. they are the least threatened by covid illness and they have the most to lose from perpetual masking in their educational environments, understand nuanced speech, see facial motions, 5% in the united states, another four million kids with some sort of language delay, keeping them masked and teachers masked is putting enormous barriers in their path to catching up and getting where they need to go from an educational standpoint. >> dr. hussein, you are on the