Hell, a lot of counties are the Florida of Florida.
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It’s unfortunate that these [people] keep us from having a reasonable discussion about the pros and cons of small children wearing masks in schools. I am a left-leaning fully vaccinated Biden voter and father of two small children, one of whom has health problems, who wears my mask wherever I am required to and wore an N95 in every public situation until two weeks after my second vaccination. I do not believe the evidence supports my children wearing masks in schools. Officials in other countries like the Netherlands have looked at the evidence and concluded the same thing. There is no place for my point of view in the public debate on this issue which makes me sad.sd
Am I the only one who thought the woman in the thumbnail was Ozzy Osbourne?
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Actual scientists and reality disagree with you. In places where students wear masks, transmission rates are low. In places where they are not mandatory, they are high.
Because it’s not an accurate assessment about masking is why. Your POV is uninformed.
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That’s because your point of view coincides with a bunch of people who think apple-flavored cattle deworming paste is better than a vaccine at preventing a viral infection.
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There are more factors to consider with small children than preventing covid infections
Small children do not live in a bubble. It’s not just about them, it’s also about their communities.
The fact is that masking saves lives. Even of small children and their families. Saying anything other than that is plain misinformation.
People DO have the option of keeping their children home if they dislike keeping others safe from an infectious disease, BTW.
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Luckily, your “beliefs” do not affect the evidence in any way, because they are uninformed and erroneous. Children can be taught to mask effectively, and they are just as effective for kids as for adults when properly utilized.
CDC Study Suggests Schools Shouldn’t Lift Mask Requirements Yet : NPR
Benefits of kids wearing masks in school – Mayo Clinic News Network
And perhaps most importantly
Near-Capacity Children’s Hospitals Plead For Federal Help : Coronavirus Updates : NPR
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Wait. You think your opinion is being stifled because people who agree with you are threatening and committing violence against school authorities? How does that work?
There is a reasonable reaction against people who use violence and intimidation to get their way. That is not censorship.
Regarding the mask issue: there is certainly evidence to support masks as protections for kids in school. We’ve screwed up the response to COVID in schools at least three times now by applying studies from somewhere with different conditions and a different virus variant to the current situation. Shall we go for four? Maybe this time, we should take a conservative approach and see if that works, instead of risking kids lives and the lives of those they will spread it to.
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They are. And by and large, complete and utter astroturfing. Three Twitter threads worth reading:
https://twitter.com/nicole_chenelle/status/1422449854224031745?s=20
https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1421931374567563264?s=20
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OMG, the right hired crisis actors.
Saw it coming. Every time the right accuses anyone of wrongdoing it is simply projection and we should start investigating them for it.
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When you say you do not believe the evidence:
I’m not sure it’s worth jumping on this but I get very frustrated when people demand evidence as though it is a simple thing that will be found from a single source or can only come in one format from one person.
I’ll speak here as a scientist who works in a clinical profession.
I spent years learning how to read and combine evidence to form a proper hypothesis and enact policies around this data. It is not straightforward to do so and takes a lot of deep critical reading of your sources and understanding of the underlying topics. This process may involve consulting with other experts when the underlying data exceeds your experience.
Research should never be formed from a single source or speaker. Researchers are humans too and we can all succumb to biases in our work. This is particularly problematic when we start to discuss things outside of our specific fields of work and fail to include those experts in our conversation.
Note: You will always find someone on the other side of an opinion. This could be because there is no most right answer, their local experience is different, or they are wrong. Just because you have a PhD or MD doesn’t make you right all the time…
When you cite the Netherlands data did you research why they made their decisions? Was it unanimously supported? Are case rates, variant prevalence, and severity different? Are there different social and cultural structures that could be changing transmission patterns? Did this decision predate Delta? All of these factors (and more) should be considered in interpreting how relevant that decision is to us.
I have close friends who are pediatricians, specialists in development, infectious disease physicians, researchers with high level biohazard certifications. I have yet to encounter a single person who believes there are any perceived harms in mask use would exceed the benefits of mask in children.
We are all exhausted from this pandemic and just want it to end. When Implementation of easy to use safety protocols (mask vaccines etc etc) will end it faster it is incredibly frustrating to see how we are not always all in this together.
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Since my posts have been deleted I’m not sure what you are referring to. Which evidence did I say I didn’t believe?
I understand and agree with what you wrote here except the part about there being universal agreement that there is no harm to mask use in children that would exceed the benefit.
We don’t know how much harm there is because it would be unethical to study it. We know the benefit is slight but real.
So I think we need a more nuanced masking policy for small children and we should stop framing this discussion as a binary one with two choices - “pro” or “anti” mask - because no one is pro mask in every situation and only idiots are anti mask in every situation.
I am refering to the comment regarding mask use in children.
I have a few more things I would like you to consider in your decisions:
There will never be universal approval of a policy. Research must always integrate the pros and cons. Not all points should be equally weighted and it’s important to never expect a black and white answer (although it can be really really dark grey). Finding someone who disagrees is not as important and understanding how far the consensus is tilted. This tilt is important. Consider debates on climate change where one person represents either side. This can make both seem equal. The real debate is best reflected if we have hundreds of people on the one side for every one on the other.
In regards to the comment of direct studies of harm. Thankfully science doesn’t always require a direct study and such a study may not be realistic. For example with masks these young children will be exposed to their parents without one at home. Taken to the extreme, no one is proposing that no child ever sees a face again…
Conveniently we do have mountains of evidence that can be used to support our hypotheses without direct study.
As I find extreme examples are great to help us think about things differently let’s consider an Onion article:
It is true that we do not have any direct study addressing if stabbing a Monkey multiple times will cause harm. We also and how this compares to punching that Monkey or just stabbing it one time in a specific location. Obviously a direct randomized study is our only option? 
Thankfully the scientific method is stronger than that. We can combine evidence from other sources through a deep understanding of the underlying biology. The conclusions can be equally valid.
I also want to ensure that we don’t get overly stuck on mortality as the only endpoint. COVID-19 leads to significant morbidity to the patient (long COVID, MIS-C in children), and harm to others through continued spread. Any policies must balance all of these considerations.
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Kids love nuance!
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I just wanted to add that as a parent of two young children I appreciate the daily stress of managing risk and safety at this time. It sucks trying to balance the risk bank every day to do what’s right for your Children.
In my opinion our main problem now is almost completely undervaccination.
I agree we will never be at zero COVID now. This will be endemic. BUT that doesn’t mean we can’t have hope. Vaccines can reduce SARs-CoV2 infection to a minor inconvenience (mild symptoms are tolerable risks) for the majority of people.
In addition to reducing the harm from the virus, we know that vaccinated people spread the virus at a lower rate than unvaccinated people (I think it’s 5x by the most recent data). So more vaccine = less risk of even seeing the virus on a personal level.
Once my children and the majority around them are vaccinated that is when I will finally be able to relax. For now they only have the minimal protection from careful balancing of exposures which is scary.
I am very impatiently waiting for the day I can vaccinate my preschooler and very very impatiently waiting on my toddler.
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Mod note: There is undoubtedly still a lot we don’t know about the social effects this pandemic will have on children - be it isolation, reduced time with peers, changes to schooling, or the effect of masks on how children read or pick up on social cues. It. along with the lives lost and the other long-carried symptoms of survivors will be the true long-tail of this pandemic. All of that is an important discussion to have.
However, we do know without a doubt that masks have positive effects. We also know the effect of the unmasked spreading the disease itself into the general population. Posts suggesting that masks are “dangerous” or “ineffective” against covid, unrelated to the above, are not welcome here. That is just anti-mask rhetoric projected on to the safety of children. If that is your stance, this is not the forum for you.
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I still get hung up on this statement. Children are dying of COVID. How many children are dying of (checks notes) wearing masks?
Setting aside mortality for a moment, since you earlier expressed concerns about the developmental and social aspects of mask wearing in children. You are aware of the multiple evidence points that even asymptomatic cases of COVID in children are associated with decreases in cognitive function, right? So the comparison there is between hypothetical effects on social development (for kids who wear masks) vs demonstrated cognitive impairment (for kids who have even asymptomatic COVID). How is that nuanced? It seems pretty easy to come to a consensus around the benefit to mask use given what we know right now.
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