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The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

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Re: The case against masks at school

#641

Post by thoms_a »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #539
adamrezich wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah, so everything is going according to plan then. downvoters: is this outcome undesirable? if so, why, and what can we do to fix it? because I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to say that having more kids is a good thing, and using immigration/migration as a means of replacing those kids we're not having is a bad thing. thus, is this outcome (declining citizen birth rates, increased immigration/migration compensati…

(I think you may have been downvoted because your initial comment appeared to be referencing the "White Genocide" conspiracy theory - essentially the idea that the Jews are planning to slowly eliminate the white race in the West and replace them with blacks and Muslims.)

This is a bizarrely specific conspiracy theory (and seems to be designed for maximum divide & conquer of voting populations) which I've never heard of. What exactly led to its inception? I always enjoy engaging with conspiracy theories, as they are a great training regimen for keeping one's mind sharp and empirically grounded, but I don't even know where to start with this one!

Re: The case against masks at school

#642

Post by mistermann »

alsetmusic wrote: post #611
perardi wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There’s a simple solution, but good luck getting everyone on board with it: stop treating the willingly unvaxxed in hospitals. Only vaxxed patients and medically-ineligible unvaxxed patients get treatment. If you can’t do this minuscule thing to help society then society can’t be turned on its head to help you.

> There’s a simple solution, but good luck getting everyone on board with it: stop treating the willingly unvaxxed in hospitals.

Have you considered Nth order effects of this simple approach (the law of unintended consequences)?

> If you can’t do this minuscule thing to help society then society can’t be turned on its head to help you.

Have you considered that there might be some of this within the infinitely complex (and typically invisible, due to the nature of consciousness) causality behind why some people aren't getting vaccinated? Perhaps we are enjoying the bitter taste of unintended consequences as we speak.

Re: The case against masks at school

#643

Post by pcmoney »

AnthonBerg wrote: post #630
pcmoney wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Masks dont help much. Vaccines dont stop contagion or transmission. They do lower risk of severe covid but kids are very low risk even if unvaccinated.

> Masks don’t help much It depends what kind of mask. Proper respirator masks like N95 and FFP2 work very well. There are now very clear results that show that the main mode of transmission is respiratory aerosol. As an example, this Lancet paper captures it well: ”Ten scientific reasons in support of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2” , The Lancet, 2021. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6…

Masks as used by 90% of the mask wearing population which is only 40%? Of the total population dont work well*

If you feel like you should wear an N95 properly to be safe then you should do that. But let’s not pretend we can get everyone to properly wear N95s

Re: The case against masks at school

#644

Post by seanmcdirmid »

wallacoloo wrote: post #545
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It just represents a general fatigue that a lot of people have with the anti vaxxers. That we have hard numbers that vaccines actually work seems to be irrelevant to them, so maybe they would be convinced by snark and sarcasm instead? > In my opinion, that…

> It just represents a general fatigue that a lot of people have with the anti vaxxers. That we have hard numbers that vaccines actually work seems to be irrelevant to them, so why maybe they would be convinced by snark and sarcasm instead? and you think this is an experience unique to your viewpoint? do you think the people reading your words who have vaguely opposing views might not also be fatigued when your group…

> do you think the people reading your words who have vaguely opposing views might not also be fatigued when your group flatly denies their concerns as irrelevant?

In the sense that a conspiracy theorist or a crank gets tired of people not believing them, yes, I guess they are annoyed. I just little empathy for them: I want this pandemic to be over, and they are getting in the way of that. Barring that, I hope that they can take responsibility for their choices without forcing the consequences on everyone else.

Re: The case against masks at school

#645

Post by xdennis »

criddell wrote: post #18
afavour wrote: post #14

In a way it's reassuring that people of all political stripes can at least come together on one point: that the CDC has been asleep at the wheel during most of this pandemic. Hopefully at some point there will be a discussion about how to reform the body to be much more proactive.

I have a mostly positive opinion on the CDC and I wonder if some of the problems are a result of political influence? The WHO and their fight against the idea that COVID is airborne is even more confusing to me. It felt like they didn't even want the idea discussed.

CDC is the agency that was running the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male" as recently as the 1970s.

Re: The case against masks at school

#646

Post by lovich »

mbeattie wrote: post #632
gkbrk wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your Grandpa chose to not get vaccinated and gets COVID, thats his problem. Sure thing. Can we get the Grandpa's to sign documents saying they're going unvaccinated by choice and would like to opt-out from any hospital care related to COVID if their resources are needed for any other patient?

Sure and while we’re at it, let’s not treat aids patients because they engaged in high risk activity and not treat heart attacks of the overweight either.

Are the hospitals collapsing because of aids patients or so many people getting heart attacks? If so then maybe we should start using carrots/sticks to limit peoples risky behavior or make them absorb more of the cost.

If they’re not collapsing the hospitals then why bring them up?

Re: The case against masks at school

#647

Post by sjg007 »

pcmoney wrote: post #589
sjg007 wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to look up the definitions of pandemic, epidemic and endemic.

An endemic disease is a disease that is always present in a particular population/region. Ex. Flu, malaria, HIV, syphilis, and… COVID Am I missing something?

Go look up the definitions of these words and then read what Closi wrote again.

Re: The case against masks at school

#648

Post by reanimus »

pcmoney wrote: post #609
watersb wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

How Does an individual choice to get vaccinated or not impact others? Vaccines do not stop transmission of Covid nor do they stop you from getting Covid. They merely decrease your chances of getting severe Covid or dying from Covid. Thus the decision to vax or not is clearly a personal choice.

> Vaccines do not stop transmission of Covid nor do they stop you from getting Covid.

They don't stop it, but they do decrease your chances of acquiring it and they do reduce the viral load you shed.

> They merely decrease your chances of getting severe Covid or dying from Covid.

So they prevent you from taking up a hospital bed, exposing the people who have to care for you to COVID and preventing other non-COVID emergencies from being tended to. That seems to impact others to me.

Re: The case against masks at school

#649

Post by AnthonBerg »

323 wrote: post #620
champagnois wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

N95s work via an electric polarity of the filter. This charge is what captures the viruses. Filtration fades when the charge is lost. I don't need to see your studies because I have helped build and certify N95 factories and know a lot about it. The masks arent usable for long and arent reusable, either. Cloth masks do nothing and are not a consideration to any serious adult.

> The masks arent usable for long and arent reusable Only because lawyers got involved and are trying to minimize liability (ie: you used it wrongly, not our problem anymore). Or are you telling me that if I put an N95, and remove it after 5 min, I can't reuse it 1 hour later, but it's fine if I wear it 8 hours straight. Yes, yes, it could get contaminated on the inside surface in between, I know. But will it stop fi…

Masks are eminently reusable.

From a Twitter thread by Dr. Claire J. Horwell, Director of International Volcanic Health Hazard Network (IVHHN), Professor at Duram Volcanology – “here's a short thread to answer the question: can you wear a disposable #facemask more than once? The answer is YES. Many manufacturers state that masks should be disposed of after 8 hours but this is not true. […] Unless a mask has become clogged full of particles in a very high exposure scenario (e.g. mining, construction) or the worker is in a contaminated front-line healthcare setting, it is still perfectly useable after 8 hours, unless it is broken.”

https://twitter.com/claire_horwell/status/146640027013763072...

Re: The case against masks at school

#650

Post by wallacoloo »

sleepybrett wrote: post #568
gherkinnn wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shoppi…

i love this viewpoint because your behavior is so similar to what i see among 90% of my friends, it seems logically consistent, and you seem to have arrived at it from your own reasoning/volition.

and then we have the mandates. presumably, your behavior is the same with v.s. without them. as is the case for most people i know. with the exception of my one friend who was building a japanese-style coin-operated 24/7 unstaffed arcade business in a stripmall off aurora. she ditched that a year into the pandemic because navigating the mandates as a business owner is not easy (how does one check vax cards at the door if their business only works because it’s unstaffed? once she does find a solution, how long until the next mandate changes things for her again? it’s settled down a little, but the policy changes were really chaotic through to last summer).

“return to normal” as a phrase is a bit ambiguous. does it mean everyone goes back to living how they did two years ago? or does it mean everyone, within each area of their life, has the option to return to what worked for them then, while keeping the parts of their current lifestyle they prefer? obviously, we can’t grant that level of optionality to every area of life without bifurcating society (e.g. separate schools for in-person vs virtual), which doesn’t sound great. but we can grant that optionality in lots of areas of life that are already adept at catering to different preferences — e.g. restaurants (if you want italian food, go to an italian restaurant), entertainment venues, gyms, and really most small/medium businesses.

i’d love for my friend to be able to open her arcade some day, and i know there are hundreds of other individuals in a similar position as hers trying to bring new things into our community. i think it’s reasonable that we allow a “return to normal” in the areas of life that are already adept at catering to different preferences, and leave the mandates only for those areas in which there’s less optionality (e.g. public transit, schools — for now, etc).

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