Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 1001 posts

Re: The case against masks at school

#501

Post by ceejayoz »

jdminhbg wrote: post #287
ceejayoz wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 autho…

> It’s fine to say with hindsight that vaccine predictions were wrong...

It's also fine to say I'm not inclined to trust the opinions of someone who has been repeatedly and demonstrably wrong in this fashion.

I know Biden got out over his skis on a number of statements, but can you cite the CDC ever making this claim? The wording they were using in June 2021 was reduce infection. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0607-mrna-reduce-ri...

"I also feel that I can't spread it to others" is a confident, evidence-free, and wrong statement.

Re: The case against masks at school

#502

Post by nradov »

otikik wrote: post #482
vikingerik wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> condemning everyone as sick with zero evidence isn't how a free society works. That is like saying that seatbelts and speed limits condemn you as a bad driver. A free society protects everyone's rights. What people tend to forget is that every right has a price, in the form of an obligation. For example: You have the right to private property, and the price is that you must respect other's private property. One of…

There is no legal right to be protected from infection. It appears nowhere in the US Constitution.

The virus will be around forever and everyone will be exposed. You can't seriously expect people to spend the rest of their lives wearing masks.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

Re: The case against masks at school

#503

Post by speedgeek »

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…

I strongly suspect that playing the piano is banned due to the possibility of social gatherings of people in close proximity to each other listening to the piano - not contracting covid from the piano itself.

Re: The case against masks at school

#504

Post by sleepybrett »

otikik wrote: post #423
downrightmike wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Soap (dry, no water) rubbed and spread with a paper towel until "apparently clean" also works - the thin layer of soap prevents fogging. You might have to try several brands of soap.

I have some old ski goggle 'defogger' that's worked well for me. I assume it operates on the same principal. It's kind of a waxy stick that you rub on and spread out with a cloth.

Re: The case against masks at school

#505

Post by clairity »

pcmoney wrote: post #475

Vaccines for Covid are available. Vaccines do not stop the spread of Covid. Vaccines do not stop you from getting Covid. Vaccines do reduce the probability of severe/fatal cases of covid. Masks are available. Most masks in most situations do little to stop the spread of Covid. Well fitted N95s are more effective. Getting vaccinated or wearing a mask is clearly a personal health decision. Vaccine mandates are ridiculo…

yes, please copy and paste this at the top of every covid thread. i can't believe people still believe 2 years on that there is "something" we can do to stop covid. it's endemic, assess/mitigate your own risk and move the fuck on.

Re: The case against masks at school

#506

Post by pcmoney »

sleepybrett wrote: post #499
pcmoney wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which is why indoor dining rooms should still be closed. Pretending we aren't living through a pandemic that is respiratory in nature is fucking madness. Maybe if we had locked down harder for longer and treated this thing seriously in the beginning we wouldn't be almost two years into this with no end in sight.

No, Covid is low risk if you are vaccinated and elderly/at risk and extremely low risk if you are younger (vaccinated or not)

It’s endemic. Its not going away. We are all going to get it. (Me: triple vaxxed, had covid 2x)

Getting vaccinated is a personal heath decision (which I encourage)

Time to move on.

Re: The case against masks at school

#507

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

adamrezich wrote: post #479
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 yo…

when you put a thing over your nose and mouth, it negatively affects how well you can breathe. depending on the material and how much you're currently breathing (exerting yourself or not, healthy or not), it may be a little, it may be a lot. this is basic common sense intuition, and propaganda about the effectiveness and/or necessity of masks of any description should not preclude you from continuing to hold these ba…

Let's try an (thought) experiment:

Put a tennis racket in front of your face. Does it impede airflow? I think the answer is clearly no.

Put a plastic bag over the your nose and mouth? Does it impede airflow? I think the answer is clear yes.

Put a food sieve over your mouth and nose. Does it impede airflow? I think the answer is probably no, but there's room for doubt.

Clearly, something placed over your mouth and nose does not necessarily impede airflow - it depends on the properties of the material it is made of. Some materials obviously have no impact, some have a lot, others are inbetween.

So the question is: why you conclude without careful measurement that a given mask would impede airflow? Presumably you have some intuition about the material and what you know about its properties ("It stops X percent of all particles above a certain size!") that lead you to conclude that it's somewhere between a food sieve and plastic bag, rather than a tennis racket and a food sieve. But there's no "common sense" here. How can Goretex fabric allow water vapor to pass freely, but not allow water in liquid phase to pass at all? You cannot explain that using common sense, but again, you have some intuition that you can use common sense to reason about the properties of masks.

I should also stress that the 20-30% number comes from a 2009 paper on the reduction in airflow. The increase in breathing effort could be less than that, unchanged or more than that, depending on a large number of factors. Example: sitting on a sofa in a comfortable temperature and being very relaxed ... you are already breathing fairly shallowly, and the increase required to overcome whatever effect the mask has will move you only to a condition you are in very regularly anyway, and so will likely be unnoticeable (there's also the "X percent of a small number is a small number" aspect). By contrast, if you are exercising near V02max levels and in excellent cardiovascular condition, you are likely already breathing almost as hard as you can, and so breathing harder due to reduced airflow is likely to challenging to impossible.

Re: The case against masks at school

#508

Post by another_story »

In Taiwan we've been wearing masks for over 2 years with near zero complaint at school. I have to remind a few kids a day to put it over their nose. We've had Omicron here for awhile, but it's still only a trickle of cases, with no exponential explosion. The policies here, with contact tracing, quarantine and masks, have kept things open and people from dying. I don't understand the hesitancy.

Re: The case against masks at school

#509

Post by swamp40 »

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…

In Illinois, wife teaches 2-3 yr olds. Masks are mandatory, all day long. Any pulldown gets pulled up. Nothing much goes on in the classroom anymore besides mask compliance and handwashing. It is INSANE.

We have two children. Both masked for 7 hours a day. Every day. Both schools are VERY STRICT. Everybody is vaxxed and boosted. Doesn't matter.

Re: The case against masks at school

#510

Post by watersb »

colpabar wrote: post #461
perardi wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 va…

I actually want to hear good reasons for avoiding vaccinations, because many people care a lot about that.

I can understand immuno-compromised people, an underlying medical condition, for whom a vaccine may not work or may be dangerous. Undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer? Got it: vaccines won't help you (or anyone else) until you can get past the cancer.

I don't agree with an argument from stand-my-ground, my-body-my-choice principles. I could agree with such a line of reasoning, if a personal choice did not present an immediate danger to anyone else.

This is a very infectious disease with severe health consequences. No one has control over the outcome, if they choose to infect another person. Maybe it's no big deal for them. Or maybe it wrecks their life, long after the vaccine objector has left the scene.

What are some other reasons for avoiding vaccination?

Post reply on HN