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The case against masks at school

theatlantic.com

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Re: The case against masks at school

#731

Post by jjeaff »

wallacoloo wrote: post #545
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 why maybe they would be convinced by snark and sarcasm instead? and you think this is an experience unique to your viewpoint? do you think the people reading your words who have vaguely opposing views might not also be fatigued when your group…

>and you think this is an experience unique to your viewpoint?

Can attest to that. As a flat earther, I am just so sick of the snarkiness of everyone who believes what mainstream science preaches.

We should all equally appreciate ALL differing views because no idea is more or less valid than any other idea. Evolution, creationism, alien seed planted by Xenu, they all deserve our time and attention.

Re: The case against masks at school

#732

Post by JPKab »

lovich wrote: post #646
mbeattie wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure and while we’re at it, let’s not treat aids patients because they engaged in high risk activity and not treat heart attacks of the overweight either.

Are the hospitals collapsing because of aids patients or so many people getting heart attacks? If so then maybe we should start using carrots/sticks to limit peoples risky behavior or make them absorb more of the cost. If they’re not collapsing the hospitals then why bring them up?

The US medical system is financially untenable due to the massive percentage of adults drinking sugary sodas with every meal, getting fat, and developing Type II diabetes. Guess we should let them die too, right?

You are making an argument with no limiting principle, because it's poorly thought out and shallow, and it shows.

Re: The case against masks at school

#733

Post by sometimeshuman »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #553
sometimeshuman wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no stigma these days for not starting a family kids and men can privately retreat into video games and pornography. When confronted about their selfish* lifestyle the above comment is convenient cover but it is not backed by solid data. I'd take birth in this past decade over birth in my decade any day. *I'd argue that not having at least one child and possibly adopting others is selfish assuming one has fin…

May I ask how old you are? From where I am, a "selfish" lifestyle of video games and porn replacing responsibility does not seem to be healthy long-term. I'm in my late 20s now, and the guys I know who are not working towards getting married and starting a family are pretty much all starting to experience some sort of constant existential anxiety.

I'd rather not say my age because I rather not influence any young men to follow my path. The general data is there, a life without a family is not healthy long term. Follow my path at your peril since a lot of other things have to go right to make up for the void usually filled by family. For the record I don't play video games or view much porn and if that is how I were filling the void I would have severe existential anxiety. I volunteer/mentor, play sports, run a business, and am successful professionally.

Re: The case against masks at school

#734

Post by darth_avocado »

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…

“Slightly inconvenienced” is a term I can assure you would be only used by someone who doesn’t have kids.

Sure, the first six months, or even a year can be discounted as an aberration in the child development process and can be compensated for. This is year 3 with no end in sight. Do you even realize how much children develop in 3 years? A 6 year old and a 9 year old have a significant difference in cognitive capabilities and if you stop the learning process, the lifetime effect can be devastating. It doesn’t matter when you’re 30 and have to sit at home, but it absolutely does when you’re a child and your brain is developing.

And based on my long career on the corporate ladder, absolutely no one cares about whether you were a pandemic baby, a child growing up in poverty or pretty much any other non visible handicap in your life. You either know stuff or you don’t.

And since you mentioned World War 2, schools didn’t stop even in WW2, At a time when people didn’t even necessarily need to go to schools to eventually lead a comfortable life.

Re: The case against masks at school

#735

Post by aeternum »

bsder wrote: post #664
aeternum wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A randomized study was run in Bangladesh. There they handed out masks to randomly selected villages among a pool of 600 villages with similar vaccination and political stances. That study showed that the effect of surgical masks was statistically significant when used by the elderly 50+ population. For other age groups and for cloth masks, the advantage was statistically insignificant. All the headlines around this s…

> That study showed that the effect of surgical masks was statistically significant when used by the elderly 50+ population. For other age groups and for cloth masks, the advantage was statistically insignificant. The study could prove that the masks worked in 50+. And this was with a maximum of 40% of people complying. This does NOT mean that the masks didn't work in 50-. It means that the statistical power was insu…

The advantage of this study is that the villages were randomized so it's unlikely that the control group engaged in more risky behavior than the treatment group.

This result for 50+ was right on the edge of the significance interval so proves is probably too strong of a word. It means you would expect this result to happen by chance if the experiment were repeated 20 times. It is definitely evidence for some efficacy but it is about as weak as it gets to be considered evidence from a scientific POV.

My point was just that the headlines painted a significantly different picture than was contained within the paper itself.

Re: The case against masks at school

#736

Post by jimmyjazz14 »

TameAntelope wrote: post #368
jdminhbg wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the Covid mortality risk for children is already with masks, compared to without masks for the flu This is false, which we know because we can measure the fatality rates for children in unmasked locales, and they do not differ from those in masked locales.

Too many confounding variables, those measurements are useless.

okay, then please by all means, cite a source showing definitively that mask themselves reduce the likelihood of a children dying from covid.

Re: The case against masks at school

#737

Post by jtbayly »

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…

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

Re: The case against masks at school

#738

Post by pcmoney »

svachalek wrote: post #686
pcmoney wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We dont make this distinction with the vast majority of personal choices. Obesity causes a ton of strain on our health system. Should we start a class system based on BMI?

Seatbelts. Helmets. Cigarette taxes. Drinking ages.

Sure but there is a big difference between finding somebody for not wearing a seatbelt in denying them medical care.

Re: The case against masks at school

#739

Post by josephcsible »

rexf wrote: post #635
phailhaus wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Try taking a 6 hour flight with a 2 year old that's required to keep his mask on the entire flight, and when he takes it off (because he's 2, of course he's going to take it off) the flight attendants threaten to turn the plane around and ban you permanently. Never heard about this, source? Toddlers tend to be somewhat exempt from mask mandates because they're toddlers and everyone understands when they don't compl…

Yeah. I have to assume user ngngngng is exaggerating to make a statement. I've flown in the past year and was annoyed that adult passengers in front of me weren't wearing their mask (or wearing it with their nose exposed). While the flight attendant told them a few times times to put their mask on correctly, the flight attendants were not going to "turn the plane around and ban [them] permanently".

No, that's not an exaggeration at all. If anything, it's an understatement. Not only will they threaten to turn the plane around, they will turn the plane around: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/american-airlines-flight-...

Re: The case against masks at school

#740

Post by mlac »

tqi wrote: post #547
aqme28 wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your Grandpa chose to not get vaccinated and gets COVID, thats his problem. Unfortunately though that's not true. It's putting a huge burden on hospitals that affects us all.

True, but thats a % of a % of a % (ie Masks could prevent some % of COVID transmission at school, of some % of which would have be transmitted to other individuals in the home, of which some % of which would have required hospitalization), which makes it seem likely to be a high cost for not much reward.

Which at scale is still a significant number of hospital beds, and queues grow exponentially when a system reaches capacity.
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