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No Way to Grow Up

nytimes.com

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Re: No Way to Grow Up

#671

Post by School-Cotton »

fundad wrote: post #665
School-Cotton wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Indoor masking is here to stay wherever there are humans. Huh? Indoor mask usage is low to zero in many parts of the US (and I assume the rest of the world too).

I should say "wherever most humans live". Here in the states, businesses within city limits require masking except for last June and July. Are the many parts you are talking about the low-population outskirts that never required masking? That's true I guess and they add up to a lot of people and businesses but not compared to where most of the population lives.

> Here in the states, businesses within city limits require masking except for last June and July.

This simply isn't true across the board anywhere except the West Coast. It's not even true in NYC which is relatively cautious about Covid. It's _certainly_ not true in Arizona, Florida, Texas, etc.

Am I correct in guessing that you live in the Bay Area or Seattle?

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#672

Post by hhmc »

toolz wrote: post #647
hhmc wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, I don’t live in the US

Well that really doesn't have anything to do with this conversation.

It feels like it's directly relevant to your claims about US hositpal beds

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#673

Post by blindmute »

yupper32 wrote: post #667
blindmute wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you generally take no responsibility for your happiness and life trajectory, merely marching to orders from faceless strangers, or is that a recent development?

When a doctor tells you to keep off your feet and go to x weeks of physical therapy, do you ignore them because it won't make you happy? When a doctor tells you to take an antibiotic until the bottle is empty, do you ignore them because you've started to feel fine after half the bottle? When a doctor tells you that you need to lose 50lbs, which will significantly change your lifestyle and in the short-term make you u…

> When a doctor tells you to keep off your feet and go to x weeks of physical therapy, do you ignore them because it won't make you happy?

If X is 2+ years, and my feet feel fine, and being off my feet is miserable, then yes I do ignore them. At some point you are responsible for your own life, and that point was a while ago. I hope you realize this before you waste any more of it.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#674

Post by toolz »

hhmc wrote: post #672
toolz wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that really doesn't have anything to do with this conversation.

It feels like it's directly relevant to your claims about US hositpal beds

I don't think I communicated my point well. A first world country is struggling to not decrease its capacity in hospitals, what makes you think the rest of the world won't have similar struggles?

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#675

Post by tehjoker »

fleddr wrote: post #272
tehjoker wrote: post #37

I wonder how all those kids with long covid will view decisions to physically disable them potentially for life so the state could force their parents to work. I wonder how kids mental health copes with the idea that adults will intentionally expose them and others to a deadly disease with no mitigations to make money.

Force them to work, huh? Does it really need explaining that besides making money, work is also used to keep our society running? Do you like things such as...say, FOOD?

China figured it out.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#676

Post by zaphar »

uniqueuid wrote: post #570
ilteris wrote: post #367

I don't give a shit what the article says or specifically points to but I can tell you this much. I am a dad of a 6 year old. My kid goes to public school in NYC and last year was bad... They did a test at the beginning of this year before the start of the first grade and her results were awful. This is an unprecedented event and everyone is clueless including in education. I don't make a big deal about the test resu…

Thank you for this comment, it's incredibly true. Some elementary school teachers I know (in Europe) repeatedly remind me how important non-academic elements are in school. * Kids go to school to get emotional care. * Kids go to school to get attention, and someone to listen. * Kids go to school to learn social behavior. * Kids go to school to have a surrogate mommy to care for them while parents work. * Kids go to s…

This is depressing. Like really really depressing.

I was homeschooled, albeit not in the pandemic form and I got all of that from my parents. I can't even express how much more grateful your comment makes me that my mom sacrificed what she did to ensure I didn't have to get all of the above from school.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#677

Post by tehjoker »

peppermint_tea wrote: post #532
khazhoux wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I furiously disagree with anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, but I'm very disappointing that the "official" Covid guidance mostly glosses over the (apparent) fact that children simply don't suffer major effects, except for a very small number of them (comparable to other common seasonal viruses). After two years and 300,000,000 cases worldwide, don't we have enough data by now to know that Covid isn't a major health risk…

You have a good point, but I also think it will take more time to get the full picture of long covid in children (number affected, symptoms etc). https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4... Because of the lack of data, it seems like I am running an experiment on my child either way : - if I send her to school where she will most likely catch covid (1st generation of kids to catch covid at a young…

In the stuff I'm reading lately, it seems vaccines might not have much effect on long covid from mild cases. Covid is a systematic disease that triggers auto-immunity.

For kids, my gut says its better to get the vaccine, but I could be persuaded that it won't do much for them as the data come out. This would place greater emphasis on NPI (distancing, N95 masks, ventilation) to prevent them from catching it at all. I get that this may not be realistic for kids, but the alternative imo is that we're going to injure the next generation. Maybe we're just doomed.

Nonetheless, at times when COVID is peaking in transmission, I think schools should be shut down to protect kids and the adults they come into contact with. In a month or two, transmission should decline. Opening schools will increase transmission again, but America seems to have no capacity to really tackle this.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#678

Post by ceras »

yupper32 wrote: post #667
blindmute wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you generally take no responsibility for your happiness and life trajectory, merely marching to orders from faceless strangers, or is that a recent development?

When a doctor tells you to keep off your feet and go to x weeks of physical therapy, do you ignore them because it won't make you happy? When a doctor tells you to take an antibiotic until the bottle is empty, do you ignore them because you've started to feel fine after half the bottle? When a doctor tells you that you need to lose 50lbs, which will significantly change your lifestyle and in the short-term make you u…

I think there are several differences here. Experts can give a ton of useful information, but they unfortunately can't answer everything for everyone for something as unprecedented and complex as Covid. In particular:

1. Experts speaking publicly are often warning of risks rather than saying "don't do X." It's a subtle but important distinction, and is very different from personal medical advice. Publicly stated guidance often leans very conservative, and there's more room for an individual to decide it doesn't apply to them than a doctor specifically telling you how to a heal your injury.

2. It's unclear which experts you're referring to and what exactly you're hearing from them. The restrictions in your original post aren't what I've been hearing, for example. Either we listen to different experts, or we're interpreting their words differently (per point 1) - or both!

3. Nobody is quite an expert in "solving Covid" the way they can be for healing an injury, and on top of that one can have reasonable yet fundamental differences with experts on Covid that don't exist for healing a broken bone (e.g. how you value the impact of mental health problems vs Covid illness; or what your level of risk tolerance is; or even the morality of potentially spreading covid, which is less bad than in 2020 since vaccines are widely available, but is it less-bad enough?). Experts can inform you of the risks of Covid, and how to reduce those risks, but it's much harder for them to tell you the negative consequences isolation: you know better than they do what those effects are on you, and so you have to weigh the risks yourself.

4. As you pointed out in your original post, there isn't a clear goal right now for Covid mandates. Healing a broken bone has an end goal that you and your doctor won't disagree about. But Covid currently doesn't, because there's sadly no expert with who has a really good answer to this: the vaccines worked, but not perfectly, so what's next? Nobody really knows, so you have to apply your own judgment (whether it's "lift mandates because we have vaccines and no clear next step" or "keep mandates to further contain Covid risks till we figure out a better strategy"), and hold your local politicians accountable to that.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#679

Post by School-Cotton »

yupper32 wrote: post #667
blindmute wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you generally take no responsibility for your happiness and life trajectory, merely marching to orders from faceless strangers, or is that a recent development?

When a doctor tells you to keep off your feet and go to x weeks of physical therapy, do you ignore them because it won't make you happy? When a doctor tells you to take an antibiotic until the bottle is empty, do you ignore them because you've started to feel fine after half the bottle? When a doctor tells you that you need to lose 50lbs, which will significantly change your lifestyle and in the short-term make you u…

> Why is this Covid situation any different?

Because the downsides of the things you listed are of a much smaller magnitude than the upsides.

A much better example would be, for example, someone telling you "don't eat red meat, because it increases your risk of colon cancer". If you really like steak, and the risk of colon cancer is small, you might choose that the tradeoff is worth it.

Health experts can only tell you whether a particular course of action increases or decreases the risk of health issues. They can't tell you whether that's worth the cost of that course of action, because that's subjective.

Regular in-person social interaction is extremely important for most people's happiness, and it's perfectly reasonable for them to think that going back to 2019 normal is worth the risk of a slightly increased chance of being killed or maimed by Covid.

Re: No Way to Grow Up

#680

Post by pavel_lishin »

josephcsible wrote: post #475
pavel_lishin wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> worrying about family members getting sick (possibly dying) That was my point. Is what's hurting the kids having to stay home, and have Zoom meetings? Or is it the fact that they're literally living through a catastrophe? The former is nothing compared to the latter.

Most people haven't really been affected by the disease itself, and instead were basically entirely affected by the measures put in place to try to slow its spread.

I'd say that fear of infection, and your family members falling ill or dying, is separate from the measures put in place, and is a very real concern for folks of all ages.
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