WATCH: Ontario's top doctor says kids may remain masked in schools due to 'other' viruses

Ontario's top doctor says masks may remain mandatory for school children when they return to class in the fall due to "other" viruses, this despite the various health and psychological and harms caused by masking children.

The province's new Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kieran Moore told CTV News in an interview that he would like "to review cohorting, size of classrooms, and have children back into the classes as safely and as effectively as possible."

However, when asked about masks, he said that they may still be required to limit the spread of other viruses in classrooms.

"A virus called RSV, respiratory syncytial virus. And as people stopped wearing masks, and socially get together, that virus is actually spreading very rapidly in the Southern United States, causing children who didn't get exposed in the winter, to get that virus into their chest. And it will mimic COVID," said Moore.

Moore's comments resulted in condemnation from prominent political figures, including MPP Roman Baber, who said on Twitter that this was "another installment" of Doug Ford and Stephen Lecce's war on children.

Toronto Sun columnist Anthony Furey, who has been a strong opponent of Doug Ford's extreme lockdown measures, also tweeted on the matter, urging parents to speak out.

On top of having the longest school closures anywhere in Canada, Ontario has also had some of the strictest mask rules for students. Those rules saw kids as young as five years old being forced to wear masks all day.

Meanwhile, British Columbia, which experts say has had one of the best and most effective COVID-19 responses, never required young children to wear masks in schools. BC's top doctor, Bonnie Henry, even said there was no evidence to support masks in classrooms.

While evidence that masking children is effective in reducing virus transmission is vague, there is mounting evidence that masking children causes great health and physiological harm.

A peer-reviewed German study found that kids who wore surgical/filtered masks inhaled over 6 times the carbon dioxide limit allowed in closed rooms. Additionally, it was found that kids in Quebec were given potentially toxic masks that could have triggered "early pulmonary toxicity." Furthermore, a team of Italian professors of plastic surgery also found children could have permanent ear damage due to the prolonged pressure from the masks' elastic straps.

Psychologists and pediatricians are also concerned about the long-term effects that masking children will have on their development. This is due to the fact that masks hide lips, preventing children from relying on facial cues and reading body language.

There are many other issues caused by the masking of children, and they will only get worse if Ontario decides to mandate masks for children when they return to class in September.