Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mix in society, wear masks everywhere, and have yet to contract coronavirus.
c) get lucky
Statistically speaking, isn't that just normal luck? Aren't 80% or so of infections mild to symptom free?
The case against masks at school
51–60 of 1001 posts
Re: The case against masks at school
#52The case against masks is quite trivial and generalizable across most industries. Today, a teacher now has two realistic options: a) self-isolate indefinitely, either teaching remotely or quitting their job b) contract coronavirus at some point Given that, masks are an irrelevance. A teacher who is clinically vulnerable and unwilling to roll the dice is left only with the option to quit their job, regardless of wheth…
I mix in society, wear masks everywhere, and have yet to contract coronavirus.
We're three months in to Omicron and only two years in, your situation right now is irrelevant.
The only way you're getting away with this is either by having some innate immunity, or by simply not noticing you've had it.
I wouldn't have realised if not for a friend saying "get a test", my only symptom was a purple line on a bit of paper. I actually felt better than normal because I went out drinking less.
Re: The case against masks at school
#53The article talks a lot about how there's little or no evidence showing benefits of masking for kids, and also talks a lot about the unknown long-term effects of masking on kids. However, as with so many articles trying to make a point or persuade people, it barely mentions at all the unknown long-term effects of covid. I'm willing to be persuaded by evidence, but (for me) any piece that fails to address such an obvi…
If you have small children you know what joke masks are in school. Little kids are not responsible adults. They touch their face, take their masks on and off, exchange them with their friends and even eat them. Pretending that masks on young kids contribute anything to slowing the spread is complete wishful thinking.
Hell, quite a few adults do that stuff.
Re: The case against masks at school
#54The article talks a lot about how there's little or no evidence showing benefits of masking for kids, and also talks a lot about the unknown long-term effects of masking on kids. However, as with so many articles trying to make a point or persuade people, it barely mentions at all the unknown long-term effects of covid. I'm willing to be persuaded by evidence, but (for me) any piece that fails to address such an obvi…
>there's little or no evidence showing benefits of masking for kids,
If the masks don't prevent the spread of COVID, or reduce the likelihood of having symptomatic illness, then the long term effects of COVID don't matter in regards to masking arguments.
Re: The case against masks at school
#55The case against masks is quite trivial and generalizable across most industries. Today, a teacher now has two realistic options: a) self-isolate indefinitely, either teaching remotely or quitting their job b) contract coronavirus at some point Given that, masks are an irrelevance. A teacher who is clinically vulnerable and unwilling to roll the dice is left only with the option to quit their job, regardless of wheth…
The point of masking and being cautious at this point is not to avoid ever catching COVID, because it seems certain now that everyone will catch it at some point. The point is to be the last person to catch it when hospitals are at normal capacity and everything else is back to normal, just in case you happen to have a very poor reaction to it.
It also just sounds kind of miserable. I also avoid catching the flu as much as possible. And if I ever go back to commuting by train, I’ll probably wear masks on the train too. I used to get colds all the time just from riding a completely packed train with sick people coughing and sneezing all over.
Re: The case against masks at school
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
perhaps an unmask would be helpful: https://www.getunmask.com/
From their website (About/Disclaimer): _The Unmask is not designed or intended to prevent, mitigate, treat, diagnose or cure any disease or health condition, including COVID-19/Coronavirus. Unmasks are intended for general public use only. They are non-sterile and are not intended for use in any clinical or surgical setting or where exposure to bodily or hazardous fluids may be expected, where the risk of exposure th…
All of this, down to the disclaimer, also applies to the ubiquitous normal cloth masks, so it's hardly a strike against them.
Re: The case against masks at school
#57The article talks a lot about how there's little or no evidence showing benefits of masking for kids, and also talks a lot about the unknown long-term effects of masking on kids. However, as with so many articles trying to make a point or persuade people, it barely mentions at all the unknown long-term effects of covid. I'm willing to be persuaded by evidence, but (for me) any piece that fails to address such an obvi…
While your point is spot on, it probably won‘t matter in the long run. With the infection rate of Omicron, we as a society were faced between even more ridiculously restrictive measures to contain it after the first economy destroying measures — or just taking the jump into the unknown unknown of what will happen if we let everyone get infected and move into the endemic state. With probably only the exception of Chin…
That's assuming we're containing it at all. This all seems very hubristic to me, but I just wanted to point out the assumption. It's not because we do things that burden us to a degree that the virus' spread is also burdened to the same degree. I feel that this is an unconscious assumption that's made in this discussion.
Re: The case against masks at school
#58Whether this article means to it makes the case for requiring vaccination instead, which, yeah we should do that.
The cost / benefit to vaccinating kids is extremely suspect.
Ireland has 1 million children aged 0-14. 1 has died of Covid this entire time. One.
So we need to vaccinate them all every year to maybe prevent half an annual death? No way does that make sense from a cost/benefit perspective (unless you're a Pfizer shareholder).
"But those kids can spread it to their triple- and quadruple vaccinated grandparents!" - What's the NNTV on that?
Re: The case against masks at school
#59The article talks a lot about how there's little or no evidence showing benefits of masking for kids, and also talks a lot about the unknown long-term effects of masking on kids. However, as with so many articles trying to make a point or persuade people, it barely mentions at all the unknown long-term effects of covid. I'm willing to be persuaded by evidence, but (for me) any piece that fails to address such an obvi…
If you have small children you know what joke masks are in school. Little kids are not responsible adults. They touch their face, take their masks on and off, exchange them with their friends and even eat them. Pretending that masks on young kids contribute anything to slowing the spread is complete wishful thinking.
And yet my impression of slightly older children and teens (admittedly in Canada) is that they're better and more consistent at mask wearing than adults are. My son couldn't care less if he's wearing a mask or not -- heck I think he hates wearing socks more.
I wonder how much of these breathless articles against masking children is more about adults than about the children.
Re: The case against masks at school
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thats not what the article is about. The article is showing the lack of evidence for masks at schools. If transmission isn't impacted by masks, then the severity of covid has nothing to do with the decision of whether to require masks or not.
But while it points out that the evidence for masks being effective is scarce, it does little to identify positive evidence that masks are specifically ineffective . So we just don't know as much as CDC's consistent guidelines seem to suggest, and it makes sense to weigh the risk. That the article neglects to frame it in this light highlights the one-sided nature.
In terms of weighing risk, find one IRB anywhere which would have approved an experiment to mask all of the students in a school district for a year.