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The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

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Re: The case against masks at school

#561

Post by hammock »

Guidii wrote: post #418
rovolo wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're taking 14 vs 10 from table 15 on page 50 on the report. Page 51 says: > The rates in Table 15 should not be used as a measures of vaccine effectiveness due to unaccounted for biases and risk factors. The age-standardized morality rates you mentioned are for just the week of Jan 8-14 (though the same pattern is visible for earlier weeks). But, you didn't mention 3-dose stats with show the opposite pattern: - Un…

To put it more directly, the same document states (on page 36): In the last week from 08 January 2022 to 14 January 2022, in an age-standardised population, the COVID-19 related death rate in individuals that received a booster or third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine was between 3.2 to 9.4 times lower than individuals who are unvaccinated or have only received one or two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine

You pulled a quote that compares boosted vs unvaccinated/one/two doses, and that is not the comparison I was making. It's possible that I'm misinterpreting the data, but you didn't show it right there.

Re: The case against masks at school

#562

Post by hammock »

rovolo wrote: post #322
hammock wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you are on a path to awakening so I don't want to discourage you, but it might be worth sharing additional data and context to parts of your comment. >With vaccine intake high in most developed countries a covid infection is like a cold or a bad flu for some. That may be more driven by the mildness of Omicron than it is by the protective effect of the vaccine. For example, the latest data show that vaccin…

You're taking 14 vs 10 from table 15 on page 50 on the report. Page 51 says: > The rates in Table 15 should not be used as a measures of vaccine effectiveness due to unaccounted for biases and risk factors. The age-standardized morality rates you mentioned are for just the week of Jan 8-14 (though the same pattern is visible for earlier weeks). But, you didn't mention 3-dose stats with show the opposite pattern: - Un…

>you didn't mention 3-dose stats with show the opposite pattern:

I didn't. Boosted do show more protection than unvaccinated, at least for a period of time. I don't dispute that.

Re: The case against masks at school

#563

Post by jdminhbg »

ceejayoz wrote: post #501
jdminhbg wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/20…

Those CDC claims are now demonstrably wrong in the same post-Delta world you’re judging her claims by. When the CDC recommended that vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks, exactly what do you think they were claiming that is different from Gandhi?

It’s fine if you want to ignore people who’ve made predictions about Covid that turned out to be wrong, but it just means you have to ignore everyone.

Re: The case against masks at school

#564

Post by Closi »

a_shovel wrote: post #549
pcmoney wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This plan would kill a large portion of immunocompromised people worldwide.

Why are the only deaths we seem to care about those that are Covid related?

If we are worried about killing people worldwide, far more people die of hunger-related causes each day, but we aren't rebuilding our entire society to save those people. But I can't see a reason why deaths from Covid are more of a tragedy than those we left to starve.

Or take smoking for instance - more people die each year from smoking than have died from Covid, but we seem more willing to ban human contact than to ban cigarettes? Seems backwards to me (especially considering c10% of smoking related deaths are from secondhand smoke in the USA!).

I know these might seem like a silly point, but why are we so focused on one single cause of death right now? We lock down our entire society to 'protect unvaccinated people worldwide', but then have continually cut foreign aid?

IMO - I think we have totally lost the plot and lost sight of what is important, but that's just my view.

Re: The case against masks at school

#565

Post by ceejayoz »

jdminhbg wrote: post #563
ceejayoz wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/20…

Those CDC claims are now demonstrably wrong in the same post-Delta world you’re judging her claims by. When the CDC recommended that vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks, exactly what do you think they were claiming that is different from Gandhi? It’s fine if you want to ignore people who’ve made predictions about Covid that turned out to be wrong, but it just means you have to ignore everyone.

Gandhi’s claim was wrong at the time. Right then and there. There was no indication the vaccines were sterilizing; she was just wishful thinking.

Re: The case against masks at school

#566

Post by ajford »

xigoi wrote: post #517
ajford wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, just because it was mandatory doesn't mean people followed through. I live in a very progressive city and we still had many people refusing to follow mask mandates at the height of pre-vaccine pandemic. People ripping down mask signs, spitting on people, arguing at the doors to a store, etc.

Interesting, I haven't noticed any of that. Maybe my country has a different mentality. I do see some people not having the masks cover their nose, but definitely nowhere near 50%, more like 5% at worst.

Totally get that. A friend of mine from Finland said compliance with mandates and safety advisories was a lot better back home than those in the US.

There's a lot of people in the US arguing that mask mandates and other medical precautions are "violating their freedom".

Re: The case against masks at school

#567

Post by rthille »

fullstackchris wrote: post #486
dsl wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd argue it in a more adult way than just punishing those who are different from you. Just do away with the masking and social distancing regardless. As soon as we were throwing out the first doses of expired vaccine, the choice by every american to get vaccinated or not had been made. If the hospitals are overrun, it will be the unvaccinated, so they'll be punished anyway - no need to legally do it. Also you need t…

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-... I guess it depends on what you mean by vaccinated: 75.1% of total us population has had at least on dose (79.8% of eligible (>= 5 yr) Fully vaccinated drops to 63.6/67.6% And Boosted is at only 41% of the fully vaccinated, 86.5M.

Re: The case against masks at school

#568

Post by sleepybrett »

gherkinnn wrote: post #544
sleepybrett wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. At some point you've got to ask if these measures are worth living for. It's winter in the northern hemisphere. It'd dark and it's cold. Keeping people locked up at home for a third season is absurd.

I live in seattle. It's dark and cold. Hell the mask helps, it's great for keeping my face warm.

I don't consider myself locked up. I miss in person game nights the most, i miss dinner with friends (in a private home or restaurant) somewhat.

We do gamenights online using videochat and products like roll20 and boardgame arena. It's not super awesome but it works for us for now.

I leave the house, go on walks go shopping etc. But I take very reasonable precautions. I shop during low traffic times, get up early and hit the grocery store before work, I order food for pickup and wait outside for it. During the more temperate months we'd set up a few tables in the backyard and have friends over for meals, each 'pod' got their own table nicely distanced, we were probably a little louder than most dinner parties but it was nice just to have them around.

For a friends birthday we wanted to go see spiderman, we rented a theater (it was actually not especially expensive) invited about 20 people who we knew were supervaxxed and responsible enough not to come if they though they might be exposed and had a grand, masked and distanced, time.

I'm just trying to be responsible, I know several people that are immunocompromised and they can't even do half that stuff. I'm trying to be responsible so that they can. When some asshole declares that 'covid is over' I just realize how fucking narcissistic they are.

Re: The case against masks at school

#569

Post by pcmoney »

a_shovel wrote: post #549
pcmoney wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This plan would kill a large portion of immunocompromised people worldwide.

How?

They can take whatever measures they need to keep themselves safe. I assume they are not going into restaurants now since the mask situation is just theater.

Their unfortunate circumstances don’t mean they get to control others. If there was a concrete ask with end date that would be one thing but asking everyone else to live as if they are immunocompromised just because they are is not sustainable.

Re: The case against masks at school

#570

Post by desmosxxx »

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.

Context matters. In this case it is in the context of spending multiple hours in close proximity with a virus as contagious as Omicron.
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