The case against masks at school • Hacker News Board

Re: The case against masks at school

#431

Post by remarkEon » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #374

remarkEon wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The idea is to reduce the spread of the virus in order to protect everyone from a lack of hospital beds and exhausted medical staff. People keep saying this, but if hospital capacity was actually the "real" bottleneck in treating covid then why haven't we seen massive campaigns to expand that capacity? "Do this thing that is marginally beneficial for adults and potentially actively harmful long term for children to…

> People keep saying this, but if hospital capacity was actually the "real" bottleneck in treating covid then why haven't we seen massive campaigns to expand that capacity? You mean like calling in the national guard to help alleviate the problem or busing in nurses from all over the country, or creating temporary wards, or fighting to get more ventilators and medications? All of those things and more have been happe…

Nurses in Boston have been striking for almost a year. I've seen one instance of calling in the national guard recently, and ventilators are no longer the preferred treatment protocol in every case. I haven't seen a single effort to literally build more hospital wings with ICU beds. Have you?

>Not only are you minimizing the benefits here

CDC's own studies did this, not me.

>but you're prioritizing potential outcomes over proven ones.

Yes exactly. We know that kids have an infinitesimally small risk from covid, we know that teachers have a similar risk profile if they're vaccinated. The "potential" outcomes are catastrophic to development, and we won't know for years what detrimental effects forcing small children to wear masks all the time will have.

Sorry, still doesn't make sense to me. We have one set of known knowns, and one of unknown-ish unknowns, and we're still doing this because people (not you, necessarily) seem to think the goal is to "never get covid".

Re: The case against masks at school

#432

Post by tlear » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #396

tlear wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Call it a vibe. I only see a steady decline in living standards in our future and it makes me pause when I think about whether to subject another human being (i.e. my kids) to that.

We are living in the most safe, prosperous, easy, carefree time in the history of human species. Can we fuck it up? yes we probably can, it won't be easy and would need to involve nukes probably.

Realize that doom and fear porn that you are reading addresses certain type of need we have. If you overdo it well you get depression. Then again some people I know use this crap to give themselves excuse to behave like teenagers in their 30s, stuck in childhood(because they can).

Re: The case against masks at school

#433

Post by baron816 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:26 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…

> My daughter is in pre-med. Apparently people are dropping out like flies

This may not be a bad thing in the long run. There’s a shortage of medical professionals because the medical industry wants it that way. If the crisis becomes acute enough, the government will be forced to loosen regulations, and that would allow for more people to enter the field faster and more easily.

Re: The case against masks at school

#434

Post by dsl » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:29 PM UTC

perardi wrote: post #417

dsl wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or…grandpa can get vaccinated. I'd be more than happy to test and vaccinate in schools. In particular vaccinate. But having kids wear masks…which they don't do well, because they're kids…not like adults do it well either…is a fig leaf. It's not going to work. And you can see that from the massive infection rates in schools that have masks .

Of course all of our problems go away when you convince the remaining 40% of the population to get vaccinated.

I'm actually in favor of doing away with masks and social distancing. Just create a nationwide policy that the unvaccinated will not be admitted or treated for COVID and we can all return to our daily lives.

Re: The case against masks at school

#435

Post by michaelmrose » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:29 PM UTC

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #389

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…

Isn't the whole point of the article that school mask mandates probably don't reduce spread? If it doesn't reduce spread than it won't help your overwhelmed friends working in medicine. Sorry I guess I just don't understand what point you are trying to make.

The thesis of the article is that even though studies show masks work studies in schools had obvious flaws and are measuring multiple confounding factors ergo masks might not work so we have no justification for mask mandates. This is materially different from knowing they don't work.

I cannot countenance the idea that keeping most of your spit with you rather than floating around the room doesn't reduce spread of a respiratory virus. At best I would suggest instead that schools ought to have had a mandate to use and reuse sterilized n95 masks instead of a loosely fitting cloth mask oft worn with the nose exposed.

Re: The case against masks at school

#436

Post by TheCoelacanth » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:29 PM UTC

uoaei wrote: post #360

chaostheory wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article points out that children have been relatively safe from COVID, which is true. The article doesn’t really cite much data to support its case. The studies it cites show a positive benefit to masking that it fails to counter. What it also completely ignores is that the masks are mainly to protect teachers and the children’s older guardians and care takers. I’m tired of anti-maskers.

Children are safe from having debilitating symptoms due to COVID . I think it's worth being precise with language because the shorthand has been confusing for many people and used as a bludgeon in the reopening-schools-debate. But of course the real issue is children getting COVID from family, bringing it to school, spreading it to other kids who then give it to other parents. I have not seen analyses which attempt t…

Also spreading it to their teachers, who are usually adults and who usually don't want to get deadly diseases and may not be willing to work without some precautions going towards their safety.

Re: The case against masks at school

#437

Post by tlear » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:29 PM UTC

smolder wrote: post #409

tlear wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I mean it is possible somewhere in the rounding error or the rounding error of the effect contraceptives had there is climate change and covid effect. Massaging that out of the data will will be tricky to say the least, but given enough grant money I am sure people will rise to the occasion.

Re: The case against masks at school

#438

Post by spookthesunset » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #159

spookthesunset wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this post-vaccine world we now live in, is slowing the spread of Covid really the absolute most important thing we all need to focus on? Shouldn’t we move on at this point? What is the end goal here? Why are fully vaccinated adults continuing to freak out about Covid?

Once again: people are dying, right now, because they can't get access to health care, because hospitals in some places are overflowing with mostly unvaccinated people with COVID. This seems like a fairly location-specific issue, so I would expect that different places could do different things at different times. We can and are focusing on other things, but hospital capacity is a good one to work on keeping down. On…

Where are people dying because they cannot get access to healthcare?

Re: The case against masks at school

#439

Post by nradov » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

TameAntelope wrote: post #261

DeWilde wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Humans aren't robots. There's nothing primitive or optional about the need for physical social interaction. The people who disagree with you aren't wrong, they simply have different subjective priorities and values.

Re: The case against masks at school

#440

Post by sjg007 » Thu, Jan 27, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #429

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…

This is the kind of thing that just drives me crazy. If the mandates were at the very least logically consistent, I would not consider them a burden. "You are not allowed into the restaurant unless you are masked, but you may immediately take it off once you've walked 10 feet to your table" is nonsense. Forcing you to leave the coffee shop with everyone unmasking to drink anyway is nonsense. It is security theater. I…

You walk by others while you are not at your table. What do you want to do? Hold your breath? Not to mention bathrooms and so forth. Presumably the tables are well spaced etc...