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The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

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Re: The case against masks at school

#271

Post by brimble »

ceejayoz wrote: post #251
brimble wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

I agree it is a reasonable accommodation, but also cannot imagine sending my own kid to in-person school if they were one of the rare high-risk kids, especially before vaccination was an option. Masking helps over a population, absolutely, but if you're a particular person who's prone to and weak against infection, the way it's been spreading in school even with masking—yikes. Masks and the (mostly lame and questionable, for the simple reason that doing better would have meant building new schools—I saw some hilariously pointless and even alarmingly counterproductive guidelines forwarded from teachers I'm friends with) distancing practices aren't anywhere near sufficient for that case, IMO.

OTOH, lots of people don't have the option to stay home and watch a high-risk kid. So masking it is (again, I am mostly very in favor of it!) but man, that sucks for those kids and their parents.

Re: The case against masks at school

#272

Post by Jcampuzano2 »

mdorazio wrote: post #48
zemvpferreira wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You have yet to get coronavirus. There’s a pretty good chance that you will before the year is out. Omicron is extremely infectious even among the fully vaccinated. For example, among my friends group all of us are fully vaccinated and boosted, and so far 60% have gotten omicron despite wearing masks in public, washing hands frequently, etc. I expect further mutations in the future will probably happen and similarly…

Depending on what test people are getting, there may be a good portion of the population who have gotten Omicron but don't know it if they had very mild symptoms.

Plenty of us have off days, or may feel a little sick but don't assume it is Covid because of expecting extreme reactions even when it absolutely could be due to its symptoms overlapping others and many people being affected very little or even being asymptomatic.

Re: The case against masks at school

#273

Post by Zanneth »

elsonrodriguez wrote: post #183

There have been numerous studies showing that mechanically N95 and equivalent masks can greatly reduce the emission of coronavirus and influenza, and can also greatly reduce the intake of coronavirus-sized particles. That's why these types of articles always focus on mask mandate effectiveness instead of mask effectiveness. How many schools with mask mandates also have their lunch indoors with poor ventilation? Can y…

It is the responsibility of public health to take all of these variables into account before mandating countermeasures. The fact that people are constantly placed in situations where mask effectiveness is reduced or in some cases completely eliminated should be evidence that mask mandates are pointless when applied at scale.

Re: The case against masks at school

#274

Post by ceejayoz »

jdminhbg wrote: post #179
ceejayoz wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monica Gandhi has been incorrectly predicting the end of the pandemic for quite some time. Long thread with video examples here: https://twitter.com/KindAndUnblind/status/147038993167988326... For example: June 29, 2021: "I actually do not wear masks unless the business asks me to, bc I feel really protected by my vaccine, and I also feel that I can't spread it to others...these vaccines are effective against variant…

> For example: June 29, 2021: "I actually do not wear masks unless the business asks me to, bc I feel really protected by my vaccine, and I also feel that I can't spread it to others...these vaccines are effective against variants, they make it so that you can't transmit..." That was exactly the CDC’s publicly stated view at the time. Pre-Delta, it was to a first approximation true. Citing this as if it’s evidence of…

Even the most optimistic data we ever had was ~90% reduction in infection. That the vaccines on the market were not sterilizing has been evident since the start.

There are a lot of examples in that thread, too. She's been confidently predicting hitting herd immunity, no need for boosters, last wave, etc. sort of stuff for a long time.

Re: The case against masks at school

#275

Post by ngngngng »

Funny to watch the Atlantic change directions on COVID over the last few months. I go back and forth on masks. In general I find them to be a minor inconvenience, although I believe they're more inconvenient for me than most because I'm blind and no matter what I do they always fog up my glasses.

But while masks themselves are mildly inconvenient, harsh mask mandates and restrictions become much more of an annoyance quickly. Try taking a 6 hour flight with a 2 year old that's required to keep his mask on the entire flight, and when he takes it off (because he's 2, of course he's going to take it off) the flight attendants threaten to turn the plane around and ban you permanently. That gets old quick.

I was in a coffee shop the other day and my mask broke. Everyone takes their mask off to sip their drink or eat their pastries, but I was immediately asked to leave when the functional mask I walked in with broke. They didn't have any extras, I wasn't carrying around more than one mask. It was embarrassing. It's pretty easy to grow tired of these mandates when your situation deviates slightly from the norm.

At this point, I'm in favor of a "protect yourself" direction. If you're concerned, put on an N95 and a face shield and sanitize your hands often. It's clear that shutting down society to the point necessary to restrict the spread of COVID is not feasible, and all the halfway measures we've taken haven't achieved their stated goals. It's just a nuisance at this point.

Re: The case against masks at school

#276

Post by TameAntelope »

sfotm wrote: post #268
TameAntelope wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

Omicron may only be less deadly because of the precautions we're currently taking. Reducing those precautions could very well slingshot Omicron into being the deadliest variant, if it isn't already by sheer numbers.

Re: The case against masks at school

#277

Post by gglitch »

criddell wrote: post #227
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…

> would you be willing to take responsibility for spreading coronavirus to n other people so you can play the piano? Would you be willing to accept responsibility for the increased depression and loneliness among the young people who live together in this building that could result from banning the piano?

Yes, exactly. We have conflicting values to balance. I hope most of us can do it most of the time from the goal, however quixotic, of doing the most good for the most people. I don't claim to know what that is, and I am not saying that the kid in the example shouldn't be able to play the piano (though, on that note, it seems to me that if a student's well-being depends that directly on being able to play the piano, the school itself is foundering). But I get you. It would be all too easy to settle for some sort of rhetorical first principle that abstracts away all the complexity: sharing things makes people sick, we shouldn't share things. Or, other people getting sick is their own problem, damn the torpedos, I'm jamming in the lounge.

Re: The case against masks at school

#278

Post by techsupporter »

dymk wrote: post #258
techsupporter wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'm sure it is. In my experience, the willingness to be vaccinated is directly, if loosely, correlated with the willingness to do other COVID prevention measures, like wearing any form of face covering properly (as in, over the nose and mouth as opposed to a chin diaper) when in an enclosed setting.

Because we are a not-for-profit medical group that receives funding from the federal government, we are covered by the vaccinate-or-test requirement from CMMS. In my department, IT, we had two employees quit over it; both of them live in Pierce County. Meanwhile, all of us (so far as I know, obviously I am not privy to everyone's medical records so I am going off of what is claimed and who remains employed with us) who live inside Seattle were fully vaccinated months before the requirement took effect.

I'm also sorry if I come across as unsympathetic or uncaring. Even though I "just work with the computers," this has not been easy for me or my department, and I have seen nurses and doctors I have worked with for years and become work friends with reach and then exceed burnout and press on anyway out of a sense of duty and obligation.

So it is just a bit disheartening to read yet another thread on Hacker News where people keep insisting we'll just have to live with it and this is just how things are now and the West Coast is obviously bad because we've tried to put this godforsaken virus first of mind for stamping out. I know we're past being able to eradicate it, but to just throw up our hands and say "well, even a disposable mask with earloops is JUST TOO MUCH" makes me deeply sad.

Re: The case against masks at school

#279

Post by TameAntelope »

nradov wrote: post #269
TameAntelope wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How many children are there in the US? I'll let you pick the number you'd like to multiply by 0.00002, to get the number of children you're okay with killing.

Re: The case against masks at school

#280

Post by TameAntelope »

meragrin_ wrote: post #270
TameAntelope wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nece…

So teach the children how to wear masks. We don't let kids shit on the floor because they don't innately know how to use toilets...
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