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The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

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Re: The case against masks at school

#971

Post by edmcnulty101 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #969
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #964

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like maybe whats causing the curve to need flattening is the 80% of non-Covid cases in the ICU?

> Marin and Santa Cruz have LESS Covid patients and are closer to overflowing than Escambia. So I went ahead and checked this, and it's wrong. Escambia's ICU capacity is 87% full, SC's is 90% full (and SC is a bad choice, as they have a total of 21 ICU beds in the county, they use bay area ICU beds for overflow, which are currently sitting at ~80% capacity), and Marin's is....40%. So I'm not sure what data you're loo…

>Secondly, no, covid capacity really is the problem, because for the last year and a half...

Bullshit.

Actual data says that Covid patients in ICU take up between 8% to 20ish% of admissions.

COVID is not causing the curve to be need flattening.

The medical system is.

Maybe they shouldn't fire medical professionals who got immunity through COVID infection instead of the vaccine.

Re: The case against masks at school

#972

Post by restingrobot »

amalcon wrote: post #185
restingrobot wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for omicron, or the next variant, or the one after that. At some point we have to face reality, and no it is not eugenics, it called "life".

We do have several vaccines for Omicron. They are the existing COVID vaccines. They aren't as effective as they were against prior variants, but they're still more effective than e.g. flu vaccines, which save many lives each year. Note that I don't agree with the eugenics comments, but this misinformation about the effectiveness of COVID vaccines is getting out of hand.

>but this misinformation about the effectiveness of COVID vaccines is getting out of hand.

Nothing I stated is misinformation. The the current vaccines are not effective at preventing the spread of omicron. So to say that the best approach, if you are already vaccinated, is to just get virus, is not a stretch. The same can apply to any future, (weak), variants as well.

Re: The case against masks at school

#973

Post by restingrobot »

standardUser wrote: post #257
restingrobot wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>requiring vaccination instead Why not natural immunity instead?

Natural immunity from which strain and how long ago? Does someone who recovered from the original strain 18 months ago have comparable protection to someone who recovered from Omicron yesterday? Or someone who has been vaccinated? We do not know these answers. What we do know - based on mountains of data - is that vaccinated people take up hospital beds far, far less often than unvaccinated people.

>Natural immunity from which strain and how long ago?

Doesn't matter. If you have already take the vaccines, it is my opinion that it is better to get the omicron variant and have natural immunity, (unless of course you are particularly vulnerable).

Your point that vaccinated people take up less beds is exactly right. Omicron is a highly contagious, weak strain and would provide and amazing opportunity for mass natural immunity, without the fear of hospitalization and death.

Re: The case against masks at school

#974

Post by burner556 »

taylodl wrote: post #936
gilbetron wrote: post #779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Here's the thing - my wife works for the school system, I have 3 kids, and I'm involved in kids activities. The "shutdown" happened in the Spring of 2020. In the Fall of 2020 all the sports leagues resumed as normal and all the kid activities resumed as normal. The schools were partially open and they went to fully open in the Spring of 2021. In total there were 3-4 months where the kids were "locked up" in their hom…

Probably because the actions of communist districts like Los Angeles

Re: The case against masks at school

#975

Post by ya_throw »

joshuamorton wrote: post #962
ya_throw wrote: post #922

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK Government Covid death statistics literally say "deaths with Covid", and are defined as "deaths within 28 days of a positive test". So it is true, and always has been. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths

The next line is "deaths with covid on the death certificate", which is different and is actually a higher number and the more important number, as it deals with people who died of covid induced pneumonia after a multi-week stay in the ICU, but not people who by chance had a heart attack after contracting a mild case.

Now there's where we get into interesting territory. The UK significantly relaxed regulations around March 2020, and basically made it very easy to put "Covid" on death certificates. The requirement for a coroner's report in the case of a novel disease (ie, Covid) was also dropped, as well as the requirement to do a Covid test (or even certify the death in person). [1]

As a result, it will never be possible to know how many died of specifically Covid, and how many died of a viral-induced pneumonia.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Re: The case against masks at school

#976

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

What we need to do is take a harder stance on the non-human species who think this whole thing is a joke! All those deer running around unmasked are the reason we are still in this situation two years later! it's just downright disgraceful! If all us mamamals could just come together for once and think collectively instead of acting in our own self interest we would have beat this thing a long time ago. Oh, and don't get me started on those dogs walking around in restaraunts unmasked... I know a shitzu in DogPatch that has never worn a mask once!

Re: The case against masks at school

#977

Post by standardUser »

restingrobot wrote: post #973
standardUser wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural immunity from which strain and how long ago? Does someone who recovered from the original strain 18 months ago have comparable protection to someone who recovered from Omicron yesterday? Or someone who has been vaccinated? We do not know these answers. What we do know - based on mountains of data - is that vaccinated people take up hospital beds far, far less often than unvaccinated people.

>Natural immunity from which strain and how long ago? Doesn't matter. If you have already take the vaccines, it is my opinion that it is better to get the omicron variant and have natural immunity, (unless of course you are particularly vulnerable). Your point that vaccinated people take up less beds is exactly right. Omicron is a highly contagious, weak strain and would provide and amazing opportunity for mass natur…

"without the fear of hospitalization and death."

Except for the 2,000 Americans dying from COVID each and every day, and the various hospitals that are at capacity.

Re: The case against masks at school

#978

Post by standardUser »

dehrmann wrote: post #911
standardUser wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Even the idea of having to "actively drink" is not something we think about on the East Coast. We just don't wear masks inside bars and restaurants.

Re: The case against masks at school

#979

Post by hardolaf »

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…

It took me two months in Chicago to see a general practitioner and I'm still waiting (4 months later) for an in-network physical therapist to start taking non-critical, new patients for a back issue. Everything is completely understaffed and overwhelmed, even the services that aren't even associated with emergency care are swamped. Heck, getting just a dentist appointment now is a multi-month out scheduling nightmare with a side of random cancellations because the staff got COVID followed by being rescheduled several more months out and hoping to be bumped again.

Re: The case against masks at school

#980

Post by hardolaf »

prepend wrote: post #933
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…

It was so bad in my school district. I think it was worse than no school for a year because of the chaos of teachers doing different things and no good monitoring or follow-up. Classes ranged from some teachers sending out a single email a week with assignments and tests and grades to teachers taking attendance the minute class started and then disconnecting. For 10 year olds. This means I would get silence for a lon…

My wife is a teacher in Chicago Public Schools and there are classes in her school that have spent less than half of the school year in the classroom because of quarantine every time a kid gets COVID. Because the kids all eat lunch together, unmasked, and indoors, well they're all considered close contacts. So back to remote lessons they go again and again.

How exactly is this better than a consistent schedule from home?

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