The case against masks at school • Hacker News Board

Re: The case against masks at school

#771

Post by seanw444 » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 1:34 AM UTC

Zanneth wrote: post #741

sleepybrett wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How much longer are you willing to live like that? Keep in mind that people who decided to move on are living happy and healthy lives without making as many sacrifices. You can call them "narcissistic" but the reality is that this virus is here to stay, regardless of how many people get vaccinated, for a very very long time. You are welcome to live any way you like, but please don't judge others for examining the sit…

There's two sides to this. Those that want to control everyone else's lives, and those that want to live their life.

Re: The case against masks at school

#772

Post by throwawaythekey » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 1:36 AM UTC

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.

Please refer to countries like Australia/Israel who are still experiencing massive case loads with a ~95% vaccination rate. It doesn't make it go away. For example please see

https://twitter.com/orwell2022/status/1486330027549544452

Sure, you can deny some people medical treatment if you want to reduce the load on the hospital by a bit but it does not go away!

Re: The case against masks at school

#773

Post by 015a » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 1:40 AM UTC

acdha wrote: post #657

twblalock wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. At this point, mandates have convinced everyone who will ever be convinced. There is no more convincing in our future. A subset of people will always…

> At this point, mandates have convinced everyone who will ever be convinced. There is no more convincing in our future. A subset of people will always reject masks and vaccines. This is defeatist and I don't think it's true. Most of those people have never had a mandate — as we've seen everywhere those have actually been implemented, there are a very few dedicated antivaxers and a whole ton of people who are comfort…

Its only defeatist if you give up. And that's effectively what our leadership has done; keep screeching about masks and vaccinations, some listen, some don't, and nothing changes. The curve keeps oscillating.

Ok; recognize that. Pivot. If the best solution won't work, then it isn't the best solution; continuing to believe so is like standing on the Titanic as its going down and yelling "god damn it just don't hit the iceberg, its so simple, just turn left." Its not helpful toward driving positive outcomes, and that's what matters. Its what happens when you let scientists and doctors run the show; they present fantastic solutions which work in the lab, if everyone does them, perfectly. The population is not a programmable computer.

What's the problem right now? Medical care capacity. What's the best way to solve that? Keep people out of the hospital. That isn't working. Stop doubling down. We need to keep medical professionals in the system, and encourage new ones to join. Pass federal laws limiting the number of patients nurses are responsible for. Supplement medical professional income with tax dollars. Create incentives for retired professionals to come back into the fray, and younger people to stay in the pipeline to join the field. Deploy the military to hard-hit areas. Embrace more easily accessible, quicker trade-skill like training for COVID-care specialist to manpower-supplement existing hospital forces, working underneath more highly trained professionals. There are many things we could do, but we're not doing much of them.

Re: The case against masks at school

#774

Post by pcmoney » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 1:40 AM UTC

uoaei wrote: post #387

Zanneth wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the responsibility of public health to take all of these variables into account before mandating countermeasures. The fact that people are constantly placed in situations where mask effectiveness is reduced or in some cases completely eliminated should be evidence that mask mandates are pointless when applied at scale.

Very confusing how people seem to keep making the illogical jump from "individuals follow a mask mandate improperly / mask mandates are insufficiently specific to cover the actual means of transmission" to "mask mandates are pointless". Mask mandates done poorly are pointless. Obviously. But it is completely absurd to conclude that mask mandates writ large are pointless.

I forget where I saw this but…

“If your solution of some problem relies on “if everyone would just…” Than you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At no point in the history of the universe has everyone just and they are not going to start now”

Re: The case against masks at school

#775

Post by JPKab » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 1:41 AM UTC

katbyte wrote: post #558

stvswn wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You somehow manage to be condescending against all parties here. Calling mothers who want their children to receive an in-person education "screaming Karens" is terribly out of touch. I have young children, and my position is simple: the hospital load, the vaccination status of the elderly, the burn out of the teachers -- it's not my child's burden. It's the adults' burden. You are free to wear a mask for the rest of…

Maybe take your kids out of public school then? Your kids are not the only ones there and don’t take priority over everyone else’s (and the teaches)

So he should foot the bill for private school because people like you don't understand basic statistics, or even bother to look at the data? With all due respect, there's a name for fear that is divorced from reality and not in proportion with the actual risk: paranoia. And that's what this is.

The number of kids who have died of COVID is in the hundreds, over a two year period. TWICE AS MANY KIDS DROWN EVERY YEAR. Virtually zero of those kids that died was healthy before they caught COVID. The number of children dying of COVID is the same as the number dying of influenza in previous years (despite a dramatically more contagious virus with far higher case rates), but for some odd reason, there wasn't a mass of parents demanding that all kids wear masks.... it's almost like maybe, just maybe, you've let your brain get hijacked by a mass panic and are refusing to acknowledge reality now, because that would require you to admit you've completely overreacted, and have done damage to children in the process. I don't blame you for not wanting to admit that to yourself, but at some point this has to stop.

Re: The case against masks at school

#776

Post by skillpass » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 1:41 AM UTC

shadowofneptune wrote: post #728

skillpass wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand you are making the argument that removing mandates for masks at schools will lead us to have a shortage of medical practitioners? That seems dubious to me. From what I know, the limits on number of doctors licensed each year are tightly controlled. If students drop out, there are countless others who will be willing to take their place.

It's not just students being affected, but educators and those who supervise residents. There will be less and less spots available in residency programs, nursing programs, etc. due to this. That was already a problem pre-pandemic: https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/nursing-fac... Compensation helps, but having to do much more work with less people increases burnout regardless of how much you're being p…

Appreciate the link, it was an informative read.

Based off what I read there, I don't think reducing burden on nurses to prevent burnout at any cost is the right response here.

The article makes clear there are two pipelines here:

Nursing student applicants -> Nursing students -> Nurses, and Nurses -> Nursing faculty

There are more qualified applicants than can be accepted as students due in part to shortages in the faculty, according to the article. So why is there a shortage of faculty? There are several items noted in the article, but I'll point out the one I think is relevant to our conversation.

> the pandemic has forced much of nursing education to an online, virtual format ... An overnight switch to virtual learning has not been seamless or easy on students or faculty ... The risk of burnout in these prolonged conditions is high—especially for faculty members who have young children or who are caretakers in the home.

So, this article is arguing nursing faculty is burning out because teaching virtually is too taxing. I don't think this article supports the idea that a nursing shortage will result due to overtaxed nurses in hospitals.

Re: The case against masks at school

#777

Post by akg_67 » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 1:42 AM UTC

fomine3 wrote: post #764

akg_67 wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

While government initiative to supply masks was a fiasco, I don’t believe that mask type is a controversial topic here. Majority of people are wearing whatever type of masks they want. There is no controversy about mask type. Even at several hospitals that I have visited, majority of doctors are wearing regular surgical masks, only a few wear N95 or double up on regular surgical mask.

Re: The case against masks at school

#778

Post by tagoregrtst » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 1:42 AM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #727

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…

General observation from reading YOUR comment - you must not have young kids at a key developmental age in primary school for if you did you'd realize how detrimental arbitrary, poorly-fitting, non-medical masks are to small children's ability to learn to speak, read other's emotions, and other crucial milestones. It's an uncontrolled experiment that was launched, without any regard for potential negative consequence…

This.

Adults have offloaded as much of the burden of the pandemic on young people as possible.

- Suicide rates are through the roof

- Developmentally delays

- Societal debt

And it goes on. Medical professional have it rough… oh well! Open up more medical schools, theres far more people willing to go to med school than get in.

Id rather not go to the Dr. and not need prescriptions to buy most drugs. Lets loosen those regulations and 80% of the reasons Ive been to the Dr. in the last six years will be covered with the same formula: 10 days of augmentin.

Re: The case against masks at school

#779

Post by gilbetron » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 1:43 AM UTC

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…

You are wrong. Deeply wrong. I respect HN's rules, so I won't reply as I really want to.

There is deep psychological damage to kids who sat alone, by themselves for the past year. Have others had it worse in history? Sure. But that's like saying if you get run over by a Prius, it doesn't matter because people that got hit by a truck had it worse.

And for all that keeping kids at home, we really didn't gain anything. If you look at places and regions that kept kids in school and compare them to places that shut schools down, there's no discernable difference in outcomes. Because people intermingled anyway. So we could've at least had kids socializing and developing normally for that cost.

Re: The case against masks at school

#780

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 1:44 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #693

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 maybe they would be convinced by snark and sarcasm instead? It's far more nuanced than that. I have now had three doses of the vaccine, and I had Covid subsequent to the third dose. Israel is now moving on a fourth dose, and the vaccine manufa…

I don't understand why you would be against getting a free booster, or even a shot every 6 months. Is it more harmful in Israel?

Plenty of people said they already had COVID, and they are still in the 10X more likely to die statistics. Either they are had something else (like a flu or a cold, you wouldn't know without a test), or something about natural immunity isn't working. I won't speculate, I believe its the former (easier to confirm that you got the vaccine then if you really got COVID).