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The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

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Re: The case against masks at school

#461

Post by colpabar »

perardi wrote: post #425
lr1970 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They'd also know that pretty much the only condition we're treating nowadays is Covid. This statement might be true for your location but is not true in general. Here in New York City hospitalizations due to covid are not very high and going down quickly. Elective surgeries and procedures go on as scheduled. ICUs are not overrun with covid specific cases. Majority of the patients with positive PCR test are hospital…

NYTimes has a pretty good source on this. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-hospitals-... I'll tell you that here in Chicago, based off data, and anecdotes: really depends on the neighborhood. Vaccinated areas? Doing fine. Undervaccinated areas? Not doing so well. Gosh, it's like vaccines work and that's the way out of this.

> Gosh, it's like vaccines work and that's the way out of this.

You know, I see snarky little comments like this becoming more and more common on this site, and I'd just like to point out that they are not helpful in any way. Who is it directed towards? Do you think you are convincing anyone, or encouraging a productive discussion? I'd be willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of people on this website are vaccinated. I know I am.

In my opinion, that line is the equivalent of saying "gosh, maybe black people should just stop committing crimes if they don't want to go to jail" or "gosh, maybe gay people should just stop having unprotected sex if they don't want HIV."

I am begging you, and everyone else, PLEASE, if you want to make a point, please do it in a respectful way that doesn't assume anyone who disagrees is stupid. If you need to be snarky, go do it on the-site-that-must-not-be-named.

Re: The case against masks at school

#462

Post by meragrin_ »

TameAntelope wrote: post #280
meragrin_ wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Who's going to teach them? Parents aren't going to have time or will miss critical areas. Teachers won't want to do it. If teachers do attempt it, it would likely be weeks or months of education down the drain since they'll be constantly taking breaks to correct students one by one.

Re: The case against masks at school

#463

Post by michaelmrose »

vikingerik wrote: post #407
autoexec wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 perceiv…

If you experience a great deal of anxiety or feel like you are being strangled while wearing a mask you are either wearing it wrong or have a medical issue this isn't how most people experience wearing a mask.

This is what I wear. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/511sZBCeHES._AC_.jpg I have bad asthma. My lungs are basically shit. I can't jog a 1/4 mile without having breathing problems. I have no problems wearing this mask save for doing sustained physical activity.

Re: The case against masks at school

#464

Post by [deleted] »

dsl wrote: post #434
perardi wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: The case against masks at school

#465

Post by standardUser »

remarkEon wrote: post #305
standardUser wrote: post #204

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. It's not about protecting the individual children (at least not primarily, because they are so low risk). Whether or not this is still a useful approach probably depends on the locale. It seems like places where the Omicron wave is rapidly ending, having children wear masks is entirely…

>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…

"why haven't we seen massive campaigns to expand that capacity?"

Maybe we should, but we are talking about an astounding cost, with ongoing upkeep, for once-every-hundred-year events. And that's just for new facilities - we already have nursing shortages.

Instead, we (and just about every other country) have used mitigation efforts to reduce the transmission rate when hospital capacity is threatened. It's a lot cheaper and can be done quickly, unlike building new ICU capacity and training new doctors and nurses (many of whom would be out of the job once the pandemic is over).

Re: The case against masks at school

#466

Post by amerkhalid »

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 .

Another thing I wonder about is what are the affects of wearing masks at young age and not getting usual amount of exposure to viruses and other germs.

I remember reading here and elsewhere that early childhood exposure to germs builds a robust immune system.

While my kid doesn’t wear mask in his class but his school is following very strict cleaning procedures. So he hasn’t gotten sick as much before pandemic. Maybe that is good, definitely easier on us. Maybe we will always have higher level of hygiene now. Or maybe in future there will be a lot of young adults with underdeveloped immune system.

Re: The case against masks at school

#467

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

adamrezich wrote: post #428
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[ EDIT: other commenters response to this comment made me go look up some original research on the topic. As a result, I fully retract what I've said below. I found several papers that report substantial restrictions of airflow from wearing a correctly fitted N95 mask. I was wrong, and I apologize for the misinformation. I did try to explicitly say that I was not doubting someone's experiences, but I apologize for ap…

the retraction is appreciated but, if you'll excuse me for saying so, the fact that you thought this at all shows that we're well into "brainwashing" territory with this mask nonsense. it should be beyond obvious to any neutral observer that putting a covering over one's nose and mouth will affect their breathing airflow, especially so when exercising. you don't even have to try it yourself to intuit this, it's just…

> the fact that you thought this at all shows that we're well into "brainwashing" territory with this mask nonsense.

I don't agree with that. As noted, blood oxygen levels for most people are not changed by mask wearing (presumably, most of us just add the extra 20-30% effort to keep the airflow up and/or were nowhere near close to requiring the full breath).

> once you have tried it, there should be zero doubt in your mind that your breathing airflow is affected

As some comments in the main thread here have noted, masks like the 3M Aura+ (which I've been wearing for a few months now) really do not have much impact on breathing airflow. My actual experience of wearing KN95's and N95's even while running is that I do not feel that my airflow is impacted at all. My mistake was to combine that actual personal experience together with data on physiological state while wearing masks (not changed much in most people) and make the false claim that there was no impact on airflow.

Some of those comments noted that the construction and fit of the mask can make a huge difference - damp cloth masks, for example, do seem to have an outsize impact. I have never used cloth masks during the pandemic, and I live in an exceedingly dry climate, so people I know who have worn them have not commented much on the effects of them being damp.

So, no, I do not agree that what I said (even while actually false) was "obviously contradictory to reality".

Re: The case against masks at school

#468

Post by clutchdude »

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…

As with many things, nuance is a subject that many on HN fail to grasp.

They believe that masking is a binary decision and that once made, the die is cast.

Rather, if we tied masking mandates to thresholds of community spread and encouraged/provided high quality masks, the public would at least show medical professionals we're interested in keeping another body out of the morgue, aside from the obvious vaccination need.

But I digress - there are many slow moving disasters that were every so slightly accelerated by COVID that are only going to surface in the years to come.

Re: The case against masks at school

#469

Post by pcmoney »

sjg007 wrote: post #440
dahfizz wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

In an open air room, the difference between walking past and sitting in the same room as is negligible.

Total theatre, does nothing besides allowing restaurants and patrons to feel ok/that they are “doing something” and stay open.

Re: The case against masks at school

#470

Post by ceras »

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…

If you haven't stumbled upon it already, you may enjoy reading about rule utilitarianism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_utilitarianism

> Rule utilitarians argue that following rules that tend to lead to the greatest good will have better consequences overall than allowing exceptions to be made in individual instances, even if better consequences can be demonstrated in those instances.

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