Live data from Hacker News

The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

911–920 of 1001 posts

Re: The case against masks at school

#911

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For two years we’ve been asked to park our problems and to act like literally all that matters is the spread of Covid. Nothing else matters. Just a myopic fixation on the spread of one highly infectious respiratory virus. Even a year after vaccines we are still being asked to treat Covid like it is the #1 priority in our lives. More important than our well being, our mental health, our communities, our children, or a…

I have to assume you live on the West Coast. I have spent a couple months in and around SF during pandemic, but I live in NYC and have travelled to many other places. The West Coast experience seems to be a singularly restrictive experience. I'd hesitate to assume the entire nation is experiencing things the same way as you describe them (they are not). Though it does seem like many students across the nation are get…

> The West Coast experience seems to be a singularly restrictive experience.

Unless you go to a bar. You just have to wear your mask when you walk in and go to the restroom. Otherwise, nursing that pint is "actively drinking."

Re: The case against masks at school

#912

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For two years we’ve been asked to park our problems and to act like literally all that matters is the spread of Covid. Nothing else matters. Just a myopic fixation on the spread of one highly infectious respiratory virus. Even a year after vaccines we are still being asked to treat Covid like it is the #1 priority in our lives. More important than our well being, our mental health, our communities, our children, or a…

> For two years we’ve been asked to park our problems and to act like literally all that matters is the spread of Covid. The problem is only half the population really followed through. These measures are still needed more because half the population effectively thinks COVID is no big deal or a hoax.

We were never going to stop it. As soon as the "real lockdown" people were calling for in the US in April, 2020 was lifted, the virus would start spreading again since there would always be travel, p999 events, people violating lockdown, and animal reservoirs that would reintroduce it. China is the best case for "following through." It can hold back covid, but only through extensive testing, lockdowns, and border restrictions in perpetuity.

Given US values (e.g. "don't tread on me"), 15% of the population would ignore restrictions. You'd also see the same thing globally, sometimes because of values, sometimes out of economic necessity.

We never had a chance to vaccinate the world quickly enough, either. Up until delta, the mRNA vaccines might have been able to eradicate it, but delta was circulating in India around when those vaccines were approved. The logistics and manufacturing capacity to deliver them to rich countries was still 6 months away.

Re: The case against masks at school

#913
post #502
post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

You are confusing _right_ with _constitutional right_. The US constitution also doesn't say anything about seatbelts, speed limits, or privacy when browsing the internet. Other US laws have rules that encode and protect those non-constitutional rights.

Besides, this is a worldwide problem. Looking at it from a US-only perspective is insufficient. Other countries have other legal systems and encode rights in a different way (some of them don't even have a written "Constitution").

> The virus will be around forever and everyone will be exposed.

That link that you sent is just an opinion from a single person written on a website. "Vinay Phrasad, hematologist-oncologist and associate professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco".

Let me try to share my thought process when I see something like this.

I have no medical training, so in principle that person is more knowledgeable than myself. On top of that, he teaches at the SF University. Those are very good credentials. How could I possibly ignore what this person says?

- I know modern medicine is highly specialized - When I go to the family doctor and he detects a problem on one ear, they might send me to an otologist, for example.

- There is a branch of medicine for infectious diseases: epidemiology. This person is an "hematologist-oncologist". That is already a bit of a warning sign. If I really wanted to dig, I would google his name, look for publications/studies. Maybe his practicing title is hematologist but he also has done the epidemiology training, he just doesn't practice that on a hospital. Let's assume he does, because I don't feel like doing that work right now.

- He's a single person. Individual people have every day problems. Get ill. Discuss with their spouses. Are sleep-deprived because they have to take care of a dependent person. And a myriad other things. I have to consider the possibility that Dr Vinay just had a bad day when he wrote that. The usual way to counter this is by looking for opinions of "groups of people". Peer-reviewed journals, etc. It does not seem like "medpagetoday" has a strong peer-review policy. This is published as an "opinion piece". That is another red sign.

- This is not a regular epidemic, it has reached pandemic levels. The number of people specializing in those must be very limited, because we don't have pandemics frequently enough to sustain large numbers of professionals. It also requires some budget - to gather information, travel to places, run labs to do analysis, etc.

So I would ask myself _which groups of medical professionals which specialize on pandemic illnesses and have a budget exist_. I know of two: The CDC, and the World Health Organization.

I would then compare what you are saying and what Dr Vinay is saying versus what those organizations are saying.

And for now, both the CDC and the WHO say that everyone should be wearing masks (they just differ in the age at which they should start).

> You can't seriously expect people to spend the rest of their lives wearing masks.

I try not to "expect things in long term", nowadays. Every day I try to get the evidence, and then re-evaluate with what I learn. Sometimes I wish that I could have a predefined idea of how the world works and then be able to ignore any piece of evidence that contradicts that, like I see some people are doing. Constant uncertainty is draining!

My expectation for _today_ is that everyone keeps wearing masks. So is my expectation for next month. I _hope_ that the CDC and WHO know what they are doing, and I think they are our best bets. I will follow their indications the best I can, but I can only _hope_ that the rest of the world does the same.

Re: The case against masks at school

#914

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…

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…

When you started with "yes, and", for a second I thought you were about to do improv!

> I have full seething burning anger towards the unvaccinated septuagenarians ruining our health care system

What do your medic friends say?

Re: The case against masks at school

#915

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…

People were quitting medicine for greener pastures way before the pandemic.

I should know, I'm one of them since 10 years ago.

Re: The case against masks at school

#916
post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, this ignores the fact that a death of a loved/cared for individual is the most "minimum quality of life" you can get. Counterpoint: my grandmother spent her last two years in perpetual loneliness because of covid measures in care homes preventing our family from ensuring full time visitors.

Up front here, I'm in no way attempting to demean your loss. As a counter-counterpoint; Buddy of mine by way of a local community group lost his elderly mother in a care home because someone decided to come in to visit last year while unknowingly covid-positive. It swept through the wing and at least three other residents died from Covid complications. My friend himself ended up catching it from his mother and was in…

> Lack of social connections can be overcome with virtual communications. It's not the same as true face to face interaction, but it beats killing someone with your mere presence.

While true, when someone's dying, skyping not in any way a replacement for being at their side.

Re: The case against masks at school

#917

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…

Genuinely asking - What's stopping a country, or hospital, from saying: "we'll prioritize cancer patients, scheduled surgeries, normal operation; you come in with Covid respiratory distress, and we're full? Go away." From the government data I've found, Covid patients are about 5-20% of emergency department patients in the US[0]; in Switzerland that leaves a healthy amount of free beds[1] (though I'm sure staffing is…

Pretty sure this is exactly what Switzerland has done a few times when the hospital situation was much worse for a short time last year.

My family also got several, none time critical yet time time intensive treatments over the past 2 years. There was no waiting because of COVID here.

Maybe also part of the reason it never turned out to be the healthcare catastrophe Americans some to live trough.

Edit:// not turning away, but giving less priority. Nobody gets or should be turned down. But when it comes to triangulation cancer may should win against a non vaccinated patient with low chance to survive.

Re: The case against masks at school

#920

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…

I am in healthcare and the leadership whoever that is makes me question continuing. Their decisions just don’t come with reason I am starting to question who is making such decisions. We are not supported and are left out to face the front lines with no sound decision making process behind what we do. If I come across a severely sick patient I am asked to wear a gown that covers 2/3s of my front from my neck to my knees along with my basic medical mask and face shield. That is all the protection I get. My head nurses do not show up and test the clients for covid they just get deemed droplet precautions until they get better. If they are confirmed covid then we can get an N95 mask but no one is testing them unless they test their selves and all my clients are elderly so not going to be tested. Now 2 months after firing those who choose not to get vaccinated we are told we have to work even with covid if our symptoms are not serious. The lunacy I am seeing is highly turning me off from doing this forever. What if it was Ebola? There is no way I can trust my leadership to make the correct decisions to keep me safe. And I don’t have any authority to use resources or make change myself. It is very tiring to do this job day after day and with the housing market I can not even afford to get into a house. I love my job but am considering a change to get into something higher paying and worth my time.
Post reply on HN