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The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

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Re: The case against masks at school

#761

Post by spydum »

baskethead wrote: post #744
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…

The article was written by a infectious disease expert. and an emergency room doctor at UCSF. Are you saying you know better than those two about whether or not masks are necessary at schools? If I were you I would simply trust the experts on this one.

we only trust experts we agree with. this is why covid response has been such a wild ride.

Re: The case against masks at school

#762

Post by monksy »

dsl wrote: post #688
brimble wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If screaming Karens are going to insist on in person learning In defense of the Karens (ew, I feel gross even typing that) remote learning absolutely was the disaster they say it was. It was really, really bad. It's hard to exaggerate how bad it was. And I mean specifically for the kids, not for the parents (it also sucked for them/us, obviously). We can probably recover well-enough from a semester or two of it, bu…

No. It wasn't that bad. School still continued. Your children are at most slightly inconvenienced during a global pandemic that has killed MILLIONS of people. All you have to do is keep your kid looking at a screen. They may need to repeat a year of school. At some point in their future your kids boss may say "oh right, you were a pandemic kid, here let me show you." It's like someone in WW2 UK complaining that the G…

That's what I don't understand. Massive world wide problem.. but we have to keep cranking the kids through the meatgrinder (public school->college->first entry job) on time. God forbid, they stop, think about how things run, try to adjust accordingly.

This is yet another problem that's ignored, swept under the run and "averaged out" as a solution.

Re: The case against masks at school

#763

Post by carapace »

Zanneth wrote: post #715
kodah wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can see what our child-bearing aged children think of all this - they're not having kids. I don't think this is a short-term aberration. We're a population literally in decline. I'm one of these folks. I think it's wrong to blame this solely on COVID. I won't have kids because my position in the United States is nowhere near guaranteed. I have survived three economic recessions, one of which I lost everything i…

I think you are misunderestimating the value that bringing a new life into the world offers you as a parent, and your community. The world in general, and especially the United States, has never been more peaceful and prosperous as it is now. Human civilization needs more people, now more than ever.

> I think you are misunderestimating the value that bringing a new life into the world offers you as a parent, and your community.

To me judging whether or not to have a child solely based on the value that it would have for you and your community, without evaluating whether or not your child will have [the possibilities of] a good life, seems cruelly selfish.

If you're not sure that there's a stable future to bring a child into, then it only makes sense to wait.

> The world in general, and especially the United States, has never been more peaceful and prosperous as it is now.

Nevertheless, there's a good case to be made that the next few decades will be "interesting times".

> Human civilization needs more people, now more than ever.

Why? For what? I mean, I like humans but there are billions and billions of us. What purpose do you see for which our teeming numbers would not already suffice?

Re: The case against masks at school

#764

Post by fomine3 »

akg_67 wrote: post #725
another_story wrote: post #508

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.

Same here in Japan. When I leave home, I put on mask and keep it on until I return home. Only time I take off mask is to eat and drink. Most people do the same. KISS, We have kept it simple. There is no discussion about when to wear or not wear, who need to wear or not, what type of mask to wear or not.

Wearing mask is pretty basic so no discussion, but mask type is a bit controversial topic in Japan.

At the beginning of pandemic, gov sends cloth mask all house. I think this was good try at the time, but finally the mask isn't used well because non-woven mask become available soon. Now gov still has huge cloth mask stocks.

After that, some research suggests that nonwoven mask is the best for protect, cloth mask isn't the best, urethane mask is relatively bad. But because the gov sends and still has cloth mask, gov don't want to say avoid using other than nonwoven masks.

Anyway over 80% (I assume) of people wear non woven mask so totally fine.

Re: The case against masks at school

#765

Post by monksy »

jtbayly wrote: post #737
dsl wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It wasn't that bad. School still continued. Your children are at most slightly inconvenienced during a global pandemic that has killed MILLIONS of people. All you have to do is keep your kid looking at a screen. They may need to repeat a year of school. At some point in their future your kids boss may say "oh right, you were a pandemic kid, here let me show you." It's like someone in WW2 UK complaining that the G…

And what happens if you fail 50% of the students for 3 years in a row? It turns into a disaster.

You come up with a plan to identify the problem, you find a way to tutor them, etc.

There are many ways to help those who want to be helped. If they don't want to be helped.. well that's not a new problem.

Re: The case against masks at school

#766

Post by ryan93 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #446
ngngngng wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/releases/2021/08/20/tsa-exten... The TSA mandate itself. Only those under age 2 are exempt from it. This is just for the US obviously, not sure about other places. But in my experience the less you paid for your ticket the more strict the airline is. I typically don't fly budget airlines but did once during the pandemic and that's when a flight attendant shouted at me and my wife when o…

They would probably be more patient and tolerant of children if they hadn't spent 2 years dealing with manchidren who scream at flight attendants and punch them in the face. I've actually never seen anyone on an airplane shout at all. Did they actually scream at you or merely speak tersely?

They should hire attendants who can distinguish between grown men and toddlers

Re: The case against masks at school

#767

Post by monksy »

pcmoney wrote: post #643
AnthonBerg wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Even improper usage of N95s give much more protection than a surgical with a mask brace.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/10/commenta...

Re: The case against masks at school

#768

Post by dahfizz »

sjg007 wrote: post #699
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.

Polio used to be endemic in the USA and now it has been eradicated.

Yeah. It was eradicated by a vaccine that actually granted immunity.

Re: The case against masks at school

#769

Post by seanw444 »

sleepybrett wrote: post #607
Closi wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Smoking, at least where I live is heavily taxed and regulated. You can't smoke in any building open to the public or place of employment, you can't smoke within 25ft of any entrance to any of those buildings either. Cigarettes are taxed to hell and back as well. I guess we could do that to the people unwilling to get vaxxinated. Tax them for their status and bar them from any building open to the public or place of e…

It scares me to see this legitimately suggested on a site full of people whose opinions I normally respect.

Re: The case against masks at school

#770

Post by [deleted] »

rhexs wrote: post #689
eddieplan9 wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe insurance companies should drop them (or raise their premium, just like what they do with smokers).

Should insurance companies also drop low income Americans with diets that trivially lead to heart disease? Shouldn't we, as a society, take care of those who don't know better?

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