The case against masks at school • Hacker News Board

Re: The case against masks at school

#331

Post by autoexec » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:25 PM UTC

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…

> Like, yeah, I will take the risk of contracting coronavirus to play the piano, because I want the piano in my life.

The problem comes when it's "I will take the risk of infecting others who are vulnerable, of contributing to overwhelming the already struggling healthcare system, and of damaging the economy to play the piano, because it doesn't matter how many people are infected or are dying every single day I care more about myself getting the things I want right now than I care about any of those things."

There's no need to frame the issue as if folks are being told they can't do anything they enjoy ever again and have to devote their whole lives to simply breathing and eating either. It's a false dichotomy that we have to choose between common sense measures for the good of our community and limiting ourselves to "what is the minimum possible quality of life we can have".

We can instead make smart choices based on the degree of community spread which can mean putting off certain activities, but often times just means putting on a mask and washing our hands. It's not a huge ask.

Re: The case against masks at school

#332

Post by claytongulick » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:26 PM UTC

techsupporter wrote: post #278

dymk wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm sorry for the difficulty you and your coworkers are facing, it can't be fun. I worked for six years in direct patient care and I know what it's like when my ward is filled an how exhausting it is.

Sometimes we lose a bit of the big picture in that situation though. It helps to take a look at the actual numbers.

In Pierce County, WA the hospitals have only recently exceeded bed capacity warranting transfers [1], in the past week there was an 8% excess capacity, the total bed capacity of Pierce County is ~460, and last week there were 125 covid admissions. The ICU is not at capacity, it's at 92%, which is typically where ICU utilization sits, if a hospital is profitable.

Pierce County has a new infection rate of about 3.5k per 100,000 [2]. The population of Pierce County is almost 1 million, which gives about 35,000 total case infections for 14 days. Of roughly 35,000 infections, there were 125 admissions over the past week. For excess capacity transfer patients, the number is somewhere around 35 to 40 people.

That's certainly enough to feel a strain with when you're working there day to day, but from the average Pierce County resident who's chance of admission in a given week (not age or health adjusted) of 0.000125, I think it's understandable why they may not feel like participating in all of the restrictive measures.

https://datacentral.kitsapsun.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity...

https://www.tpchd.org/healthy-people/diseases/covid-19/pierc...

Re: The case against masks at school

#333

Post by Mockapapella » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:28 PM UTC

spookthesunset wrote: post #111

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…

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…

Just to throw my anecdote into the ring -- I live in a mid sized city in the midwest. People have largely stopped wearing masks since about March of last year in all places except for hospitals (and even then it's just those crappy generic blue masks). My GF and I actually had a bit of culture shock when we took a trip to Chicago a few weeks ago and 95%+ people were wearing masks everywhere they went, along with private businesses requiring masks and proof of vaccination.

It's not like the people around here aren't aware of COVID-19 and the subsequent variants, we just kind of moved on.

Re: The case against masks at school

#334

Post by concinds » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:28 PM UTC

taylodl wrote: post #304

General observation from reading the comments - the folks on HN must not have many friends working in medicine for if they had they'd realize those friends are swamped and burned-out. They'd also know that pretty much the only condition we're treating nowadays is Covid. Surgeries are continuing to be postponed - including surgeries that can lead to worse problems down the road such as removing cancerous tumors. And i…

Genuinely asking -

What's stopping a country, or hospital, from saying: "we'll prioritize cancer patients, scheduled surgeries, normal operation; you come in with Covid respiratory distress, and we're full? Go away." From the government data I've found, Covid patients are about 5-20% of emergency department patients in the US[0]; in Switzerland that leaves a healthy amount of free beds[1] (though I'm sure staffing is another issue). Why are they causing such disruption? And if they are, why are we not having a debate about whether all the additional cancer deaths, heart attack deaths (from deprogrammed surgeries and screenings) are worth it? In what way is this "healthcare catastrophe" not partly avoidable?

> You can see what our child-bearing aged children think of all this - they're not having kids. I don't think this is a short-term aberration. We're a population literally in decline.

That's been happening long before Corona, and I doubt it has much do do with politics or "optimism about climate change" compared with wages, housing, etc.

[0]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/nhcs/hospital-encounters-by...

[1]: https://www.covid19.admin.ch/en/hosp-capacity/icu?time=phase...

Re: The case against masks at school

#335

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:28 PM UTC

phailhaus wrote: post #307

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…

> 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. Never heard about this, source? Toddlers tend to be somewhat exempt from mask mandates because they're toddlers and everyone understands when they don't compl…

[deleted]

Re: The case against masks at school

#336

Post by gglitch » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:29 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #330

gglitch wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, t…

> if a student's well-being depends that directly on being able to play the piano It's death by a thousand cuts. The piano policy isn't that devastating by itself, but it's one of 50 things that have been taken away.

It's exhausting. And the piano policy in the example is totally absurd. I hope my remarks didn't come across as personal. I have kids in school too, and although I'm currently favoring masks, I'm also miserable about how my kids' early childhood social and academic development have been impacted.

Re: The case against masks at school

#337

Post by Hokusai » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:29 PM UTC

psyc wrote: post #310

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…

Wearing masks whenever possible doesn't bother me in the slightest. I've been loving it that COVID has normalized wearing a mask in public because I'd like to do it all the time for the rest of my life without being judged for it. But I don't want anybody mandating it. I've been trying to work out in my own mind why I switched to being more, uh, 'deontologist' if you will, several years ago. I'm just starting to almo…

> Americans debating every day whether strongly authoritarian and invasive measures are OK, if they save lives.

In Europe seatbelts are mandatory, and it is forbidden to smoke in most places. I think that these are reasonable measures. I think, for the exact same reasons, that mask mandates are reasonable.

In public transport is mandatory to wear at least a t-shirt, as skin to skin contact gets unhealthy fast. And restaurants require to clean your hands after going to the toilet.

What does not fit with my idea about the USA is that you can go naked in the street, as it seems quite a Puritan country. And books being censured in schools for mildly nudeness also seem to be the norm. Is not that worse that mask mandates?

Edit: seatbelt

Re: The case against masks at school

#338

Post by tjr225 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:29 PM UTC

taylodl wrote: post #304

General observation from reading the comments - the folks on HN must not have many friends working in medicine for if they had they'd realize those friends are swamped and burned-out. They'd also know that pretty much the only condition we're treating nowadays is Covid. Surgeries are continuing to be postponed - including surgeries that can lead to worse problems down the road such as removing cancerous tumors. And i…

> And it gets worse. My daughter is in pre-med. Apparently people are dropping out like flies and not just because of the course load. They're watching how medical professionals are being treated and saying screw it! This should concern us all because we've had a marked uptick of medical professionals retiring/resigning since the pandemic started and now the pipeline is thinning out.

You should be angry at corporate healthcare that has prioritized financial efficiency and monetary gain over doing its job and treating healthcare workers fairly, not strangers on hackernews.

> We're a population literally in decline.

No, no we're _literally_ not. Not as of right now at least; the US population grew over the last year. But- even if we were, wouldn't that directly address the unrelated issue of climate change that you brought up?

Re: The case against masks at school

#339

Post by champagnois » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:29 PM UTC

elsonrodriguez wrote: post #327

champagnois wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

N95s work via an electric polarity of the filter. This charge is what captures the viruses. Filtration fades when the charge is lost. I don't need to see your studies because I have helped build and certify N95 factories and know a lot about it. The masks arent usable for long and arent reusable, either. Cloth masks do nothing and are not a consideration to any serious adult.

Why make the claim that n95s don't filter viruses and then say that they do indeed capture viruses? Also yes the filtration fades but there's data out there showing 40 hours of use on KF94s still showing filtration percentages in the low 90s.

You misunderstood or I was not clear. N95s do filter viruses when used properly and still within their rated window of use.

Re: The case against masks at school

#340

Post by kareemm » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 8:31 PM UTC

champagnois wrote: post #306

CamperBob2 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

There is no evidence that I am aware of which would indicate places with strict mandates (Boston or LA) did significantly better or worse than places that made such mandates illegal (Texas). The outbreak curves and percentages are basically the same, especially when you account for the population differences in age, obeasity, diabetes, etc. A red state might do worse at times, but is also more easily explained as a r…

> The outbreak curves and percentages are basically the same, especially when you account for the population differences in age, obeasity, diabetes, etc.

Can you cite a source for this claim?