It was a study of a single month in Georgia before Delta. Aside from the narrowness of the inputs I highly doubt school policy and ground truth were aligned.
That study is not enough to be driving policy.
Most I've seen cited by mask proponents either don't use control groups (and thus can't really distinguish btwn other factors that correlate with mask wearing) or are laboratory tests just testing what % of particles are blocked by masks--which ignores almost every relevant question about mask mandates and relies on suspect theoretical models about how covid actually transmits between people.
I'm mystified why people on both sides are so up in arms about masks, but nobody gives one shit about uncontroversal and more effective mitigation techniques like air filtration and circulation.
An infected kid in classroom without proper air circulation could fill the classroom with enough virus to cause a super spreader event--mask or no-cotton/surgical mask.
The HVAC is continuously circulating air from the time it is on until after school when it turns off. There is some time before school and maybe 20min after school when it is on.
They have settled on only pulling air from the outside instead of recycling the warm or cool air in the room.
And having some kind of agreement on the merv rating of the filters. It may be merv 7(but I'm not sure.)
How much would it cost to retrofit a bunch of schools with this stuff?
Ideally you'd do both. Have better air circulation, and institute masks when the regional caseload goes above a certain threshold.
Even things like a box fan in a window are probably significantly more effective than scooby doo masks.
That's fine year-round in the south and southwest. Not so much in the rest of the country though.
Those are some wildly different standards. You can convince yourself of anything if you assume it’s correct and raise the bar high enough for counter evidence.
Also it sickens me that people downvote your valid concerns. Kids need facial expressions. They need to hear and see each other to learn. I don’t know why that is so controversial.
Yes, the emergency order for vaccines is generally for the higher risk population. But using a not very broadly tested vaccine that was given an emergency order first in kids doesn't seem like a good idea I guess.
Covid is extremely dangerous in kids. Long covid in kids isn't something I would ever want to expose my kids to if I had kids. If I had kids I would want them to wear a mask. I don't want to get covid from them if they happen to be a vector. I don't want them to develop a full-blown case. I don't want them to get it and then infect their mother or their friends or me or their teacher. I don't want anyone to get covid.
I've been reading all of your replies and you are an very emotional parent and I respect that and I understand that.
Kids might need facial expressions but kids 100% do need to be healthy and they aren't as resilient as you have said.
Okay, so your child gets covid isn't vaccinated and you end up finding out when they are in their mid-20s that they are developing some sort of a brain disorder that was brought on by long covid that we are completely unaware of because we don't know what's going to happen with this.
This is what's wrong with a lot of these short-sighted arguments is that... I might be afraid of covid and I might want zero covid but that is because I have the imagination to envision what could end up happening. and it's not far fetched it's not fear tactics it's not gaslighting.
While we know that kids need certain things for their developing brains, positive stimulus visual things and all of that... I don't know how you're not more afraid or more concerned about the unknowns about this virus.
Now I'm going to get a little opinionated here and it might be a little jab and I apologize for being rude... Are you sure that your actually not just worked up about this because you have a job you need your kids to go someplace during the day you're stressed about other parts of your life just crap like that?
Like for me personally, I'm disabled I stay at home all day I go out maybe once a week to get groceries and I double mask and I've been vaccinated since April 20th with Pfizer. Before this pandemic I didn't go anywhere.
I might be a little bit maladjusted but I'm not going to be rolling the dice on a virus that could potentially affect me my entire life when the life that I'm already living right now already has problems and I don't need people who are all "think of the children" acting short-sighted about all of this and putting people like me at risk putting people at risk putting themselves at risk.
I wish people would take this more seriously. Yeah we could have an entire year or two of no social encounters or deprived extroverts but think long-term on how we could have a whole slice of humanity that's getting this virus that is basically just messing up how their DNA is going to unfold how all of their proteins are going to unfold basically turning into a whole new research sector.
We have all of the knowledge and the ways to avoid all of this but we have people that just give up and accept that oh we're all going to get it so just buck up old chap.
No it's not. Death rates are less than 1 in 50,000. Death and hospitalization rates are similar to the dangers of the flu or RSV or riding in a car. It's a 100X less dangerous than owning a pool. It's the type of risk we have to be able to live with. And as for long covid, I don't have the study on hand, but there was a study where there was no difference months later in symptoms like fatigue or runny nose in kids that had covid versus did not have covid.
Okay, so your child gets covid isn't vaccinated and you end up finding out when they are in their mid-20s that they are developing some sort of a brain disorder that was brought on by long covid that we are completely unaware of because we don't know what's going to happen with this.
Or maybe they get vaccinated but the vaccine causes some prion disease that does not show up for 10 years. Or maybe a new mutant strain causes ADE in the vaccinated. Life is full of dangerous, speculative unknowns unknowns. But worrying about this kind of speculative, zero-evidence risks is the route to hypochondria.
I don't want anyone to get covid....Yeah we could have an entire year or two of no social encounters or deprived extroverts but think long-term on how we could have a whole slice of humanity that's getting this virus that is basically just messing up how their DNA is going to unfold how all of their proteins are going to unfold basically turning into a whole new research sector.
Based on current U.S. government policy, why is it going to just be a year or two? It's already been a year and a half. What is going to change to make covid magically go away? It's not going away, covid is endemic. You either will have to isolate and wear P100 masks for the rest of your life, or you will get exposed to covid eventually.
It isn’t my job to prove it isn't necessary. I’m the one that needs to be convinced, not the other way around. Y’all are the ones trying to force this, not me.
If it's full then risking developmental issues for your child should probably be a less important to you than risking a highly contagious illness with the complications that entails (complications include death, permanent cognitive, neurological, respiratory and cardiovascular damage).
Ideally every responsible* parent could choose how they want to manage the risk for their child, but that's not always practical. With limited daycare and schooling facilities, there's a strong push to follow the more ~conservative~ (cautious) approaches. And this is at it should be. As they say "Your freedom to swing your arm ends at my face", so to should your freedom to choose the level of risk you are comfortable with be limited by the freedom for others to choose their level of risk.
*A responsible parent considers the welfare of the child first and foremost, not using children as tools to make points or demonstrate a commitment to a particular ideology or to otherwise serve their own interests.
Kids aren't at risk. We have more than a year and a half of data to support this.
> A responsible parent considers the welfare of the child first and foremost, not using children as tools to make points or demonstrate a commitment to a particular ideology or to otherwise serve their own interests.
Correct. And I'd argue almost everybody in favor of forcing kids to wear masks at school forgot this.
It already has.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/13/us/dallas-county-no-pediatric...
Well, the Delta variant seems to be changing that.