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The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

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Re: The case against masks at school

#251

Post by ceejayoz »

brimble wrote: post #202
TameAntelope wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only infinitesimal due to all of the precautions being taken. Remove those precautions, and more children will die. Also pretty great, you're cool with a couple dozen kids dying because otherwise some kids might be mildly inconvenienced by wearing a mask. The discomfort is infinitesimal, the response should be proportional.

I've been pro-masking-in-schools for other reasons (including the practical reality that many schools would have had to shut down without it, since many teachers would have just quit—I know a lot of teachers, and whether you think it's right or wrong, that was going to happen, last school year especially, if precautions like masking, distancing, and long quarantine periods hadn't been enforced) but the risk specifica…

> except for kids with other risk factors, some of whom probably shouldn't have been in school at all for any of this

You're likely getting into ADA territory there. Masking during a pandemic to permit at-risk kids to continue to go to school sounds very much like a "reasonable accommodation" of the sort schools are required by law to provide.

Re: The case against masks at school

#252

Post by techsupporter »

dymk wrote: post #240
standardUser wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to assume you live on the West Coast. I have spent a couple months in and around SF during pandemic, but I live in NYC and have travelled to many other places. The West Coast experience seems to be a singularly restrictive experience. I'd hesitate to assume the entire nation is experiencing things the same way as you describe them (they are not). Though it does seem like many students across the nation are get…

It also depends where on the West Coast you live, of course. It's more of a city/rural divide. I live south of Seattle. Seattle is restrictive, everybody outside is wearing masks, many restaurants are still take-out only, business are open for limited hours. But you go 40 minutes south to, say, Puyallup, and the COVID restrictions are much more relaxed (if present at all).

> Puyallup, and the COVID restrictions are much more relaxed (if present at all).

Meanwhile, the medical group I work for in Seattle is being absolutely swamped by patients being transferred from overwhelmed hospital and urgent care facilities in Pierce and Thurston counties. We've had to stop doing anything but COVID-related care and the only reason we have the capacity to do that is because we don't operate an emergency room so we can't take on the worst-of-the-worst cases.

According to our daily COVID update report, we have a handful of patients who gave residence addresses--we ask for this because the county and state departments of health want it for statistics, among other reasons--inside Seattle and just a few more inside King County.

It's a very stressful time for many of us, and it isn't helped by the disparity in level of care, let's say, over COVID prevention measures even inside the region.

Re: The case against masks at school

#253

Post by standardUser »

spookthesunset wrote: post #120
Avshalom wrote: post #25

Whether this article means to it makes the case for requiring vaccination instead, which, yeah we should do that.

If vaccination was the answer, why is my triple vaccinated self still required to wear a mask at a grocery store? Worse, why do I need to show proof of vaccine to enter a restaurant yet still be required to wear a mask anyway?

First of all, the number of places where you need to wear a mask inside of stores is fairly tiny. Second, for those places with mask mandates for shops, it's really hard to check everyone for vaccine status and really easy to see if someone is wearing a mask.

As for restaurants... where do you need to wear a mask in a restaurant these days? I often wear it when talking to the host, just to be polite, but that is the only moment I wear a mask in a restaurant.

As for vaccines, they are the "answer" because they dramatically reduce hospitalizations and all of the downstream catastrophes that come from overwhelmed hospitals.

Re: The case against masks at school

#254

Post by dymk »

TameAntelope wrote: post #133
nradov wrote: post #121

There is no valid scientific or medical basis to mandate masks at school. It's pure scientism and politics. For anyone who believes that mask mandates should continue please take the time to educate yourself by listening to this panel discussion by a group of leading physicians. UCSF professor and infectious disease expert Dr. Monica Gandhi explains the current science very clearly. https://peterattiamd.com/covid-par…

What? Do masks reduce infection rates? If yes, mandates work. If no, mandates don’t. Spoiler: they do. [0] This is pants-on-head stupid, and has nothing at all to do with politics. Mandates increase adoption rates of measures that are proven to help, and trying to manipulate the situation to say otherwise is the problem, not the mandate. Anyone opposing masking in schools at this point is literally choosing to risk k…

More children will probably die in the years to come by suicide due to overburdensome restrictions and nuked social development than by COVID.

Re: The case against masks at school

#255

Post by laserlight »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #102
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…

> if coronavirus were ten times more fatal, we'd do it naturally.

What if people didn’t? What then? How would that be different from today?

Re: The case against masks at school

#256

Post by afavour »

nradov wrote: post #150
ceejayoz wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine that's also for contact tracing.

No one is actually doing meaningful contact tracing anymore. It was a compete failure and waste of resources.

But is there still a requirement to get that data? It might not be the Tate’s choice.

Re: The case against masks at school

#257

Post by standardUser »

restingrobot wrote: post #74
Avshalom wrote: post #25

Whether this article means to it makes the case for requiring vaccination instead, which, yeah we should do that.

>requiring vaccination instead Why not natural immunity instead?

Natural immunity from which strain and how long ago? Does someone who recovered from the original strain 18 months ago have comparable protection to someone who recovered from Omicron yesterday? Or someone who has been vaccinated? We do not know these answers.

What we do know - based on mountains of data - is that vaccinated people take up hospital beds far, far less often than unvaccinated people.

Re: The case against masks at school

#258

Post by dymk »

techsupporter wrote: post #252
dymk wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also depends where on the West Coast you live, of course. It's more of a city/rural divide. I live south of Seattle. Seattle is restrictive, everybody outside is wearing masks, many restaurants are still take-out only, business are open for limited hours. But you go 40 minutes south to, say, Puyallup, and the COVID restrictions are much more relaxed (if present at all).

> Puyallup, and the COVID restrictions are much more relaxed (if present at all). Meanwhile, the medical group I work for in Seattle is being absolutely swamped by patients being transferred from overwhelmed hospital and urgent care facilities in Pierce and Thurston counties. We've had to stop doing anything but COVID-related care and the only reason we have the capacity to do that is because we don't operate an emer…

I'd imagine this is also due, at least in part, to Pierce County / South Sound having a lower vaccination rate than the Seattle metro area.

Re: The case against masks at school

#259

Post by simonw »

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…

Presumably the piano ban was brought in last year, when people though that Covid spreading through surfaces was a big problem - and that piano ban hasn't been re-considered now that we know that Covid is mostly spread through inhaling shared air.

Re: The case against masks at school

#260

Post by xigoi »

jasonlotito wrote: post #238
spookthesunset wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For two years we’ve been asked to park our problems and to act like literally all that matters is the spread of Covid. Nothing else matters. Just a myopic fixation on the spread of one highly infectious respiratory virus. Even a year after vaccines we are still being asked to treat Covid like it is the #1 priority in our lives. More important than our well being, our mental health, our communities, our children, or a…

> For two years we’ve been asked to park our problems and to act like literally all that matters is the spread of Covid. The problem is only half the population really followed through. These measures are still needed more because half the population effectively thinks COVID is no big deal or a hoax.

Many of the restrictions were mandatory, so all people had to follow through…
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