The case against masks at school • Hacker News Board

Re: The case against masks at school

#401

Post by spookthesunset » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:11 PM UTC

stewbrew wrote: post #137

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…

When people play music, they sing. Singing in a crowded room isn't really a good idea when there is an infectious visus around.

This argument falls flat on its face. There is always infections viruses going around. Covid is not the first nor will it be the last.

Who gets to decide what is okay and isn’t anyway? Some myopic “experts” who barely feel the negative impacts of their prognostications? What about other types of experts? What would “music experts” say about shutting down the piano?

Covid doesn’t live in a vaccum.

Re: The case against masks at school

#402

Post by elzbardico » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #314

champagnois wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never mind the fact that they are not rated to filter viruses.

It doesn't matter. Putting literally anything in front of your virus spewing face hole is going to help to some degree. It's not as if the crook of our arms are rated to filter viruses, but that hasn't stopped health organizations all over the world from recommending the vampire cough for years. It's true that a mask alone isn't enough to guarantee anyone's safety and while community spread is high sending kids into…

humm... no.

Things don't work like that. On the contrary, exhaling through what is essentially is a sieve is only going to promote aerosolization.

Re: The case against masks at school

#403

Post by spookthesunset » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #208

stewbrew wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people play music, they sing. Singing in a crowded room isn't really a good idea when there is an infectious visus around.

It likely wouldn't be crowded. They have pretty strict rules about the number of people that can gather in any room. Also, these people all live together. They are touching the same surfaces, breathing the same air, sharing the same bathrooms, etc... But you are right - singing would increase the risk of infection. Still, I think the risks from the current version of the virus to a vaccinated group of young people (w…

Why is it up to anybody to decide what risks people are able to take? We have freely available vaccines. Let people decide for themselves…

There is more to life than Covid.

Re: The case against masks at school

#404

Post by zemvpferreira » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #380

zemvpferreira wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> I mix in society, wear masks everywhere, and have yet to contract coronavirus. Or you did and were asymptomatic. Something on the order of 70% of cases are largely asymptomatic IIRC. Unless you're claiming you got a PCR test every 21 days since the beginning of the pandemic?

I have not (only a few tests so far) but I'll do you one better. I have a few doctors friends who mix in society, wear masks everywhere, work in covid wards and have yet to contract coronavirus. They have to take an ungodly amount of PCRs.

Point is, a lot of people have been infected so far, but not all people.

Re: The case against masks at school

#405

Post by pge » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:13 PM UTC

onedognight wrote: post #342

tjr225 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It’s only increasing due to immigration, if I’m reading this correctly. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

Not yet - if you look on pages 5 and 6 of that report, you see that births still exceed deaths in the US. Without immigration, though, population will stop growing in the next two decades (but it hasnt stopped yet).

Re: The case against masks at school

#406

Post by dsl » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:13 PM UTC

perardi wrote: post #384

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…

Yes, and? The hospital case load is overwhelmingly, screamingly, massively dominated by the elderly unvaccinated. https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/... Given the extremely contagious nature of Omicron, what plausible way do we have to prevent these individuals from getting COVID and using hospital space? And don't say masking up kids—because if they haven't gotten vaccinated, then why do you…

I know multiple households where the initial infection vector was the kids. Grandpa might be stupid and refuse the vaccine, but keeping little Billy from becoming a carrier lessens the hospital load. If screaming Karens are going to insist on in person learning, we need to mask test and vaccinate in the schools.

Re: The case against masks at school

#407

Post by vikingerik » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:15 PM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #378

vikingerik wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your face hole is not virus spewing if you aren't sick.

Too bad you can't know if you're sick or not until it's too late. It's one of the reasons this virus spreads so quickly. Even if you're not sick wearing masks also helps to protect you from getting sick. It's win/win for extremely minimal effort/inconvenience.

Too bad that condemning everyone as sick with zero evidence isn't how a free society works. Let's imprison everyone who "might" commit a crime.

Masks have gigantic effort/inconvenience and mental health costs. I can't think of anything but counting down the seconds until ripping that f*cking thing off my face while being strangled by that shit. Yet nobody cares about anyone else's mental health over their own perceived safety.

Re: The case against masks at school

#408

Post by jimmyjazz14 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:15 PM UTC

hogrider wrote: post #122

Wtf, masks absolutely work. Who is pushing this stuff and for what nefarious reasons? Do they think all children should get exposed early to the virus and then we'll develop heard immunity in decades to come? We have the vaccine for that.

The person "pushing" this is apparently Margery Smelkinson who according to bio on the Atlantic is an infectious-disease scientist whose research has focused on influenza and SARS-CoV-2, further research indicates that she is a staff scientist at The National Institutes of Health. So you know, just another one of those run of the mill nut jobs out there. Although she did at least manage to string together a few paragraphs laying out her case and citing sources as compared to you single sentence rebuttable.

Re: The case against masks at school

#409

Post by smolder » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:16 PM UTC

tlear wrote: post #377

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…

People stopped having kids once they could(easily available birth control). Trying to connect it to COVID or Climate change is not supported by any data whatsoever.

Birth control is not the only factor that has affected birth rates, even if it's the biggest. There are many factors. Any connection to COVID or climate change may not supported by any data you've seen, but does that entitle you to categorically rule it out as a factor? Where's this data that shows no relationship? I've seen a number of indications young people are increasingly hopeless about the future. It stands to reason that this could effect birth rates so I feel there's at least a small burden on you to show why the idea is wrong.

Re: The case against masks at school

#410

Post by adamrezich » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:16 PM UTC

jmull wrote: post #398

Hm... this does not actually make an argument against masks in school. It's perfectly fair to point out the limitations of the available studies. Of course we want better ones -- that's a good argument for more, better studies. But the lack of absolute proof isn't an argument against masks in school. That's dumb. Until we conduct some well-designed rigorous controlled experiments on human children (which we'll never…

> Masks aren't exactly burdensome. We make kids wear shirts and shoes, even when it's unnecessary in summer. Given the current situation, if you could magically set aside politics and the associated mouth-breathers (which of course we can't) wouldn't we actually demand proof that masks are a net negative before we stop mandating them?

normally you're supposed to actually demand proof that something is a net positive before you start mandating it, instead of saying "it's not exactly burdensome, why not?", and then going ahead and doing it.

shirts and shoes don't obscure faces, which are used to communicate nonverbally. one of the main advantages of public/private schooling over homeschooling (though there's obviously ways to mitigate this for homeschoolers) is the social interactions between children are valuable in teaching them basic social skills more or less organically.

you have to stop and think about nth-order effects when making broad sweeping authoritarianesque mandates like this, it's never as simple as, "well, they have to wear shirts and shoes to school don't they? how are masks any different?"