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The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

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Re: The case against masks at school

#81

Post by [deleted] »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #24
throwaway22032 wrote: post #21

The case against masks is quite trivial and generalizable across most industries. Today, a teacher now has two realistic options: a) self-isolate indefinitely, either teaching remotely or quitting their job b) contract coronavirus at some point Given that, masks are an irrelevance. A teacher who is clinically vulnerable and unwilling to roll the dice is left only with the option to quit their job, regardless of wheth…

I mix in society, wear masks everywhere, and have yet to contract coronavirus.

[deleted]

Re: The case against masks at school

#82

Post by talideon »

speeder wrote: post #17
occamrazor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first I thought that the website was sarcastic. But they are unironically selling those “unmasks” without making it clear that they are as useful as a fishnet mask.

I went to check the site after your comment, and found this, and the letters weren't even small: Disclaimer The Unmask is not designed or intended to prevent, mitigate, treat, diagnose or cure any disease or health condition, including COVID-19/Coronavirus. Unmasks are intended for general public use only. They are non-sterile and are not intended for use in any clinical or surgical setting or where exposure to bodil…

In other words, they exist to put others at potential risk.

Re: The case against masks at school

#83

Post by aidenn0 »

margalabargala wrote: post #45
andreareina wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a former asthmatic. Even cloth masks are restrictive enough that they'd have been an issue for me.

I actually have the opposite experience with my exercise-induced asthma. It's quite dry and cold where I am currently, due to winter. Wearing a cloth mask increases the temperature and humidity of the air I breathe when working hard, and makes it less likely that asthma will be triggered. It's a significant enough effect that I will sometimes wear a cloth mask specifically for this effect when doing something strenuo…

That would probably be true if we lived somewhere with actual winters. My daughter's PE class is in the afternoon, and the lowest high-temperature we've had all winter is 63.

Re: The case against masks at school

#84

Post by restingrobot »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #76
restingrobot wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is inconclusive evidence that children are vectors of transmission to teachers. At the very least it is the same as any public gathering. So your "options" would apply to every aspect of life, (Grocery store, restaurant, etc.)

Yes, hence my use of the term "generalizable".

>generalizable across most industries.

I was trying to point out that it is not just industries, its literally life. This is anecdotal, but many of the teachers I personally know are anti-in person learning, but still willing to eat out a restaurant, which makes me question their true motives for remote learning.

Re: The case against masks at school

#85

Post by DeWilde »

nkrisc wrote: post #55
throwaway22032 wrote: post #21

The case against masks is quite trivial and generalizable across most industries. Today, a teacher now has two realistic options: a) self-isolate indefinitely, either teaching remotely or quitting their job b) contract coronavirus at some point Given that, masks are an irrelevance. A teacher who is clinically vulnerable and unwilling to roll the dice is left only with the option to quit their job, regardless of wheth…

The point of masking and being cautious at this point is not to avoid ever catching COVID, because it seems certain now that everyone will catch it at some point. The point is to be the last person to catch it when hospitals are at normal capacity and everything else is back to normal, just in case you happen to have a very poor reaction to it. It also just sounds kind of miserable. I also avoid catching the flu as m…

Sterilizing your environment might be actually counterproductive for your immune system. A better strategy is eat more healthy and do moderate exercises, especially during flu season.

Eventually you will come in to contact with a virus, unless you plan to remove all contact with people and animals.

Re: The case against masks at school

#86

Post by aidenn0 »

fifteenforty wrote: post #3
aidenn0 wrote: post #2

I live somewhere with mild winters so the schools don't have any hallways (the classrooms just open to the outside). This meant that kids could at least get a break from masking between classes. However, after coming back from winter break, the schools started mandating masks outside as well as in, and including during PE class. As you can imagine, my asthmatic daughter was not pleased.

What type of mask is she wearing?

She switched from cloth to paper and it did improve things somewhat; I think a lot of the effect is that it seals less on the side though, so the results of them requiring masks outside is that my daughter is wearing a less effective mask inside.

Re: The case against masks at school

#87

Post by restingrobot »

Avshalom wrote: post #79
restingrobot wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>requiring vaccination instead Why not natural immunity instead?

"let god sort em out" is just eugenics.

>"let god sort em out" is just eugenics.

LOL its not eugenics, its the same for every other infectious disease without a vaccine. Everyone will get omicron/some variant at some point.

Re: The case against masks at school

#88

Post by rhino369 »

criddell wrote: post #15

My kids attend a university in Canada and live in residence on campus. They have had incredibly strict rules around masking and gatherings. It's clear that they are only considering one variable - number of infections - and it seems like they aren't considering any other factors. For example, in the dorm there is a common area with a piano. Because of COVID, playing that piano is banned. Even if there was a reasonabl…

And if its anything like American colleges, the draconian restrictions don't actually stop the students from crowding into over-packed apartment and house parties over the weekends.

Re: The case against masks at school

#89

Post by dragonwriter »

Minor49er wrote: post #80
cloutchaser wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. The market really does solve for every possible niche.

Their mention of air travel also makes me think of how the government brought in TSA checkpoints, but a company called Clear allows people to mostly bypass it for a fee. It would be nice if we didn't have these restrictions plus people finding ways to profit off of getting around them. Just get rid of both.

> the government brought in TSA checkpoints,

The government brought in the TSA to take over checkpoints and relieve the air transport industry for liability for failures of and abuses at the checkpoints as part of the post-9/11 air transport industry bailout; the checkpoints had existed for a long time.

Re: The case against masks at school

#90

Post by colechristensen »

lambdaba wrote: post #57
endymi0n wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While your point is spot on, it probably won‘t matter in the long run. With the infection rate of Omicron, we as a society were faced between even more ridiculously restrictive measures to contain it after the first economy destroying measures — or just taking the jump into the unknown unknown of what will happen if we let everyone get infected and move into the endemic state. With probably only the exception of Chin…

That's assuming we're containing it at all. This all seems very hubristic to me, but I just wanted to point out the assumption. It's not because we do things that burden us to a degree that the virus' spread is also burdened to the same degree. I feel that this is an unconscious assumption that's made in this discussion.

We’re not, people are pretending that we are or still have the opportunity.

Most of the US is at or past the omicron peak, it stopped growing because it’s running out of people to infect. The more cautious people will make up a long fat tail, but it really seems doubtful that anything can be done.

We’ve had 72 million detected cases in the US, if you assume a certain number didn’t test and a big number never knew they had it at all… we are really running out of people to “save” from covid infections. During the national peak, there were something like a million infections a day.

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