Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 1001 posts

Re: The case against masks at school

#101

Post by rhino369 »

afavour wrote: post #14

In a way it's reassuring that people of all political stripes can at least come together on one point: that the CDC has been asleep at the wheel during most of this pandemic. Hopefully at some point there will be a discussion about how to reform the body to be much more proactive.

The CDC has never balanced risks in any reasonable way. If you listened to the CDC, you wouldn't eat sunny-side up eggs, medium-rare steak, and Prosciutto.

I'm not sure its limited to just the CDC. The entire medical field misapplied basic fluid dynamics for over 50 years and incorrectly concluded that covid couldn't be airborne.

Re: The case against masks at school

#102

Post by throwaway22032 »

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…

This is the fundamental issue with coronavirus mitigation measures. There are circumstances in which "drop everything" makes sense - if coronavirus were ten times more fatal, we'd do it naturally.

But in general, looking at life from a perspective of "what is the minimum possible quality of life we can have" is depressing and fundamentally incompatible with the human spirit.

I tend to think that people who operate in this way are subhuman, in the genuine sense of the word - they seem more like bureaucratic automatons than living beings with spirits and hopes and dreams.

Like, yeah, I will take the risk of contracting coronavirus to play the piano, because I want the piano in my life. The piano is what life is, life is not simply breathing and eating.

Re: The case against masks at school

#103

Post by Avshalom »

restingrobot wrote: post #87
Avshalom wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

But we have a vaccine.

Re: The case against masks at school

#104

Post by rhino369 »

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…

>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.

By that reasoning you would only wear masks when rates are very high. But a lot of schools require it when case rates are very low.

Re: The case against masks at school

#105

Post by rkk3 »

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…

> 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

Great justification for making 5 year-olds wear masks for 6+ hours 5 days a week in school. This makes even more sense for the 5 year old kids that have ESL or Speech Pathology needs.

Re: The case against masks at school

#106

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

CrazyPyroLinux wrote: post #78
sjg007 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is plenty of evidence that masks work.

[citation needed] Studies that don't use a model or beg the question? The Danish one that shows 3% effectiveness? Or the Bangladesh one that shows 11%?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/masks-protect-sch...

Also the minor detail that countries with masking cultures - like Japan - have relatively excellent Covid stats with minimal deaths.

Honestly, we're through the looking glass if we're even pretending there's any kind of debate about this.

Masks work for adults. Period. There are tens of papers proving that now. Any good faith web search will find them. For every cherry picked paper "proving" they don't there are ten much better designed studies proving they do.

If masks work for adults, they work for kids - not just to cut spread between kids, but also between kids and adults, and especially between kids and vulnerable adults.

The UK has decided to have an outbreak of political psychosis over this, and there are already significant - double digit - percentages of both teachers and kids off sick with Covid in many schools.

Risks to kids are relatively insignificant compared to the trauma of lost school friends, lost hours from school, lost relatives and - in too many cases - lost parents.

The promotion of irrational and human-hostile anti-masker anti-vaxxer nonsense really needs to stop.

Re: The case against masks at school

#107

Post by restingrobot »

Avshalom wrote: post #103
restingrobot wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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.

But we have a vaccine.

Not for omicron, or the next variant, or the one after that. At some point we have to face reality, and no it is not eugenics, it called "life".

Re: The case against masks at school

#108

Post by Auracle »

jimmyswimmy wrote: post #75

An interesting article. I was recently unimpressed by the new Virginia governor's first action to reaching the mandate on masks in schools. My county has elected to retain its own mask mandate. At first blush a mask mandate is generally a public good. I keep my germs to myself, you keep yours too yourself, and we don't get the flu, or a cold, or COVID, whatever. And so for me despite not living wearing a mask I have…

A large portion of people wear cloth masks, which are largely ineffective. In addition, you’re talking about a group of 20+ people being in close proximity for at least an hour. (Most) masks are only going to reduce the number of viruses spread, so it might buy you a little extra time around someone that’s infected - but at some point enough will get through.

Re: The case against masks at school

#109

Post by criddell »

aeternum wrote: post #20
criddell wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a mostly positive opinion on the CDC and I wonder if some of the problems are a result of political influence? The WHO and their fight against the idea that COVID is airborne is even more confusing to me. It felt like they didn't even want the idea discussed.

What gives you a positive opinion of the CDC? By their own admission they have lied to the public multiple times. That's not something that is indicative of good leadership, even if supposedly done for benevolent reasons.

> What gives you a positive opinion of the CDC?

There are a lot of really great people working for the CDC and they are doing some excellent work. They also made some bad decisions around respect to COVID-19 that absolutely does affect their trustworthiness.

However, if I add up the positives and negatives, they still are come out with a net positive rating for me. There's a lot more to the CDC than their COVID response.

Re: The case against masks at school

#110

Post by criddell »

a9h74j wrote: post #65
criddell wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a mostly positive opinion on the CDC and I wonder if some of the problems are a result of political influence? The WHO and their fight against the idea that COVID is airborne is even more confusing to me. It felt like they didn't even want the idea discussed.

"When science mixes with politics, what you mostly get is politics."

This is an amazing quotation and now I'm reading about John Barry, so thanks for posting it.
Post reply on HN