The case against masks at school • Hacker News Board

Re: The case against masks at school

#261

Post by TameAntelope » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 7:42 PM UTC

DeWilde wrote: post #85

nkrisc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But that's the trick; I can temporarily remove all contact with people and animals, while there's an active deadly virus killing astronomically large numbers of people in my country.

Will I need to be like this forever? No. Can I be like this for another year or so? Yes. It's highly unpleasant, but I (and some others like me) can actually isolate to the degree you jokingly suggest.

And why wouldn't I? Because of some primitive need for physical social interaction? Because of my weak will, my inability to place the needs of others before the totally optional needs of my own?

It just seems like anyone who can isolate and doesn't should have a hard time looking themselves in the mirror. It's obviously a different story for those who can't (most people, really).

Re: The case against masks at school

#262

Post by Zanneth » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 7:42 PM UTC

lemmsjid wrote: post #207

throwaway22032 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Perhaps instead I might be following Covid guidelines for the following reasons: so I don't pass the infection onto those who are indeed vulnerable; so I don't overtax an already overtaxed healthcare system and healthcare workers. Part of the ineffable human spirit, IMHO, is altruism: which in this case can manifest as taking on a set of mild day to day inconveniences in order to help others be happier and safer. I d…

At this point, the most vulnerable have a sophisticated arsenal of tools to prevent themselves from being seriously affected by the virus. Vaccines, antivirals, masks like N95 that work to protect the wearer, etc. In my opinion it is no longer the duty of the non-vulnerable, especially children, to carry the burden of the pandemic because of the extremely negative consequences of these countermeasures.

Re: The case against masks at school

#263

Post by talideon » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 7:43 PM UTC

hydrok9 wrote: post #157

talideon wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

For people like me, it's either this option or an exemption. No longer will I put other people's health above my own. Triple vaxxed and willing to get as many as I need. But feeling like I'm suffocating is no longer an option. If you don't have breathing/anxiety issues (or both), you don't know what it's like and I;d encourage you to avoid the snideness.

I have chronic lung issues. It's not snideness. People who use fake masks put my life at risk. I've literally spent the past two years being terrified.

So yes, I do have breathing and anxiety issues, but my breathing issues are because I've crappy lungs, and I'd prefer to _not_ be around those who consider my life less worthy than their own.

Re: The case against masks at school

#264

Post by standardUser » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 7:43 PM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #200

It's going to be darkly funny when all the people that thought infecting kids constantly was a good idea start to have to cope with the social and biological consequences of it for decades.

What you are suggesting is wildly speculative and not backed up by the science. Individuals not in high-risk groups nearly always make a full recovery from COVID infections.

Re: The case against masks at school

#265

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 7:43 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #198

wonderwonder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids school district did not require masks but highly recommended them. I figured I would send the kids to school with masks as I did not want to be disrespectful to their teachers who I assumed would be masked out of concern with being around so many children all day. None of their teachers wore masks, so that was the end of that. Essentially 15% of people including teachers and students wear masks. None of the a…

Do you know what the positivity rate is of your school population? Our school requires masks at all times on campus, inside or outside, vaccinated or not (we're in California). However, prior to omicron we had 0 cases (school has about 500 people at it teachers+staff+kids). With Omicron we've only had 37 cases.

[deleted]

Re: The case against masks at school

#266

Post by gglitch » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 7:44 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #228

gglitch wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like, yeah, I will take the risk of contracting coronavirus to play the piano, because I want the piano in my life. I'm sympathetic to your point (and I love to play piano), but I can't help but ask, if we slightly reword your claim: would you be willing to take responsibility for spreading coronavirus to n other people so you can play the piano? Edit, to be clear: I'm not talking about the piano, or surface transm…

How is him playing the piano spreading anything aside from possibly joy and happiness? What a ridiculous thing to say.

Yeah, sorry for not being more clear, but I wasn't talking about that person, or the piano, or about the odds of someone contracting COVID from surfaces. I was using the quote to illustrate what I see as a difficult pair of values to balance that situations like masks in classrooms, or other shared-space restrictions, really throw into painfully high relief: how do we collectively, as a society, balance our own personal inclinations (i.e., in this case, to play the piano, or in OP, to let our kids go unmasked) with whatever risks we impose on other people (i.e., in this case, which for the record I totally agree is excessive, that the shared piano will help spread disease; or in the outer case, that fewer masks in the classroom could lead to, e.g., more sick grandparents, or teachers)?

Re: The case against masks at school

#267

Post by autokad » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 7:44 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #147

moritonal wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many places have used Covid as an excuse to regress and implement desired polices. Take for example the Tate Modern, a museum in London. Under the argument of COVID you must have a ticket to enter (previously free). You can get a ticket by scanning a QR at the door, you simply have to give an name and email. You can see how they got to that place, so they can control the density of visitors which is important because…

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

contact tracing only works when a pandemic is in the hundreds, maybe a few thousand tops. After that it becomes too intractable to trace and also yields little benefit.

Re: The case against masks at school

#268

Post by sfotm » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 7:44 PM UTC

TameAntelope wrote: post #233

sfotm wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really true, regardless of whether you like masks or not. There have been one or two level changes with respect to how much risk you're introducing to those around you as well as the personal accountability of those you'd affect. It's not surprising that different people have different tolerances for these risks. Even without the above factored in, this is sort of like saying that not using your turn signa…

It's not about individual risk, it's about collective risk, and honestly it's quite selfish to consider the COVID risks only with regard to yourself. And Omicron has made it so the risk profile is effectively the same as when this pandemic started; you will get it, you will be contagious for a time, and you will infect others. By looking at that risk and accepting it, you're throwing away the work you've previously p…

The risk profiles that I refer to are both collective and individual - they're correlated for pretty clear reasons. Nobody is experiencing the spread of the disease in a vacuum.

Omicron's risk profile doesn't seem to be the same, looking at the numbers available on the Google chart I look at. We're seeing a lot fewer deaths per cases. That's not to say everyone should throw caution to the wind and do whatever they want, but it's disingenuous to say the math hasn't changed at all.

COVID cases are acting like a marketplace. People take different actions when the numbers/unknowns change, and that's not surprising. I know I'm doing a lot more outside of the home than I was when COVID first started, and that I'm not unique in that respect _at all_.

Not prescribing any course of action, just tossing out what I've been seeing.

Re: The case against masks at school

#269

Post by nradov » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 7:44 PM UTC

TameAntelope wrote: post #184

johnnyb9 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the childhood mortality risk associated with Covid is comparable to the flu (which seems to be the case) why weren't we masking every child before Covid?

Because the Covid mortality risk for children is already with masks, compared to without masks for the flu. Also, there are considerations other than specifically a child's death that are relevant here, like who that child can spread it to and what negative longterm effects surviving COVID-19 carry, neither of which are as pronounced or unknown as with the flu. But you knew that already, didn't you?

According to the CDC the COVID-19 infection fatality rate for children is 0.002%.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

Children can spread the virus to adults, but adults who want to be vaccinated have been for months now. And since everyone will be exposed anyway it hardly matters who does the exposing.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

Re: The case against masks at school

#270

Post by meragrin_ » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 7:45 PM UTC

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…

Um, it says "can" and not "do". It says "can" because it depends entirely on the person wearing it. Trained professionals in a short term controlled environment, I am sure they work great. Kids in a school, not worth it. The neglect in "frequent hand-washing", "physical distancing", and other habits are going to lay waste to any positive impact the masks may have. No one is going to spend the time to instill the necessary habits to make masks worthwhile in school.