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The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

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Re: The case against masks at school

#281

Post by downrightmike »

ngngngng wrote: post #275

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…

bandaid over the nose and mask should stop your fogging. You can also use a little saliva on the lenses like they do in scuba diving. I usually just move the glasses a little further down my nose and that does like 95% of the solution.

Re: The case against masks at school

#282

Post by CamperBob2 »

ngngngng wrote: post #275

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…

and all the halfway measures we've taken haven't achieved their stated goals.

You have some good points up until this one. Go to your local hospital and ask them how they'd like it if their case load went up by 2x due to a lack of "halfway measures." In some places, that will be OK, while in others, it will be utterly catastrophic.

Obviously that doesn't justify ridiculous overreactions to unmasked toddlers, as you point out. But it's just as obvious that the inadequate measures being taken are nevertheless helpful on a population-wide basis.

Re: The case against masks at school

#283

Post by gglitch »

hammock wrote: post #171
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…

48 million Americans get food poisoning every year, many dying. Are you going to stop cooking for your family and friends?

Yeeeaaah, I realize my point was easy to make a caricature of, but that's a pretty specious caricature. I'm talking about an effort to balance safety and freedom from a more collective and thoughtful perspective.

Re: The case against masks at school

#284

Post by jaywalk »

gglitch wrote: post #266
jaywalk wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 perso…

In the case of the piano, it's very simple: anyone who is worried about catching Covid by listening to the piano is free to not listen to the piano. There's really nothing to balance.

Re: The case against masks at school

#285

Post by ngngngng »

downrightmike wrote: post #281
ngngngng wrote: post #275

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…

bandaid over the nose and mask should stop your fogging. You can also use a little saliva on the lenses like they do in scuba diving. I usually just move the glasses a little further down my nose and that does like 95% of the solution.

I haven't tried saliva. Usually I just end up with my mask way up my nose and my glasses moved down my nose. That works fine short term but I have to hold my head like a pompous asshole and that's tiring.

Re: The case against masks at school

#286

Post by hedgehog »

speg wrote: post #247
Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am double vaxed+boosted, and I still wear a mask everywhere I'm required to which includes still going to the gym 3-4 times a week. My gym has gone back and forth between masks being required or not with the case count. I know I've read everything about airflow being fine, and there being no reduced oxygen intake, but having worked out with and without a mask depending on location in the past 2 years I can attest a…

As an aside, have you noticed any improvements from training with a mask on? Is it like how runners might train at high altitude, so when you come back to normal levels you are more efficient?

A good while back I looked at restrictors for training and my recollection is they didn't show any benefit in studies. Unclear why. They're a lot tougher than any respirator I've tried so I wouldn't expect the respirator to have any benefit that direction. Altitude tents apparently do work but are more trouble and risk than I'm comfortable with.

Re: The case against masks at school

#287

Post by jdminhbg »

ceejayoz wrote: post #274
jdminhbg wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It’s fine to say with hindsight that vaccine predictions were wrong, but again, that was the official position of the CDC and Biden administration at the time as well, so it’s hugely dishonest to pretend like she’s some kind of extremist or disinformation artist for being on the same page as them.

It’s not really the reader’s responsibility to check everything else in the thread to see how you and/or the thread author are either lying or failing to remember very public facts about the pandemic.

Re: The case against masks at school

#288

Post by wonderwonder »

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.

Official numbers say we have 10 active cases and 35 total for the year in my kids elementary school which has ~750 people on campus. My kid is one of those positive cases so he is quarantined for 10 days. Keeping my youngest home as well just to be sure he does not infect anyone, just assuming he is positive as well but no symptoms. They go to the same school. Prior to omicron I think they only had 5 positive cases at the school, no masks during delta either. At this point just assumed that if no one else is masking, there is no point and the kids are not going to keep them on if the teachers don't make them or wear them themselves. Assuming wife and I have it currently as well as we are not isolating from our kid but no symptoms. Wife and I are just working from home to avoid infecting anyone at work.

Re: The case against masks at school

#289

Post by graeme »

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.

This is unlikely to be true for respiratory viruses. Compared to an ancestral environment, we have:

* Much less contact with bacteria, dirt, allergens, due to sterilization

* Much more contact with respiratory viruses, due to enclosed spaces and modern energy efficiency standards

The whole overactive immune system/hygiene hypothesis is much more likely linked to lack of exposure to the first group of pathogens and substances.

Re: The case against masks at school

#290

Post by bastardoperator »

azangru wrote: post #70
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.

> after coming back from winter break, the schools started mandating masks outside as well as in While the effectiveness of masks at schools indoors is questionable, is there any evidence at all for using, let alone mandating masks outside? I would have thought that the sheer volume and circulation of fresh air should dilute viral particles below the infectious concentration. What are they protecting against: direct…

If you have children you know the answer to this question:

  What are they protecting against: direct sneezing into someone else's face?
Yes. Coughing, sneezing, touching, hugging, biting, scratching, and not washing hands. If you want to get sick on a semi regular basis, children are the way to go.
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