When can we lose masks in elementary school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Delta variant is coming. The idiots from the red states will bring it this summer when they vacation here and we'll be lucky if kids get to go back to schools with masks.

Turn off the media. It is all fear mongering and hype. For whatever reason, public health officials are ginning up fear of a new variant. It may be that they like the control and $$$. It may be that they are in bed with pharma companies making money off of vaccines. It may be something else. I don't know. But how, after the past few years, can you take anything you hear from major media outlets as anything other than a propaganda campaign? Those people unfortunately stopped being good faith actors a while ago.

Also, note that those "idiots" from red states managed to send their kids last year while you sat at home cowering in fear and waiting from the latest transmissions from CNN and MSNBC.

Well the WHO is recommending face masks for even the fully vaccinated. But who cares what they say, right?

UNESCO is advocating strongly against school closures. Do you care what they say?

https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse/consequences

Also UNICEF:

"As we enter the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, no effort should be spared to keep schools open or prioritize them in reopening plans. Children cannot afford another year of school closures."

https://data.unicef.org/resources/one-year-of-covid-19-and-school-closures/

I'm happy to follow WHO advice, as long as you're happy to also follow the advice of other international institutions.

Since when is pro mask being anti open schools? You are reading things that aren’t there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect that there will be a huge uptick in regular coronavirus cases, RSV, flu, adenovirus, etc in the fall.
This will cause confusion and chaos again. It's going to be a s.show and honestly, focusing on masks is probably a distraction when we should be focusing on stopping all medical mandates.

More importantly:
We all need to stop fighting each other as our freedoms and liberties are being stripped away.
We are likely in two camps.
You either support the idea that government agencies (not elected) have the right to mandate what goes in or goes on our bodies and our children's bodies or you are against it.

I am personally against it. I will leave the school system and homeschool, no need to make that comment.

Because DCUM is anonymous (which has positives and negatives) I think it is difficult to organize around volatile issues.
And everyone is entitled to their own passions.

Our jobs as parents now is to make the most informed choices and that is a huge challenge when there is so much censorship of discourse. We cannot have true scientific consensus when state controlled agencies decide what is science. That is scientism.

Please please share any constructive avenues for meaningful debate and ways to make our voices heard.

My children will not be back in school with masks. At least not until a true discussion of the pros, cons, and effectiveness is had at a local and national level. I'm not taking about parroting Fauci soundbites or only looking at Facebook for information.

There are a lot of intelligent people in this area and tbh, I'm appalled by people's willingness to accept the dominant narrative and not question things. We all literally hold in our hands the most powerful research tool in the history of mankind.

Stop bickering, stop virtue signaling, stop blaming and shoulding others.
We need to come together and demand the truth. Because things are definitely not clear.

Sorry, I am in the camp of we should constructively follow scientifically-based official government advice, and not random "they are taking away our liberties!" calls to arms. If you home-school your child, I wish you luck and all the best, but do not think we should "crowd source" government policy for public health. It is clear that doing the right thing in a global pandemic is not popular -- apparently either telling people to do the right thing to keep as many people as safe as possible or telling others to stop doing things when they are no longer necessary. Government officials will have to make hard calls, will get some of them wrong, but we should continue to have a little patience with them and with each other.

The WHO is not an official government. It's a multinational institution. I think that PP sounds a little nuts, but I also think there's a lot of space for people to be making their own assessments. I mean, I was getting hassled for **sitting in the park** a year ago. Government overreach is a thing. It's easy for you to say "give them patience" but how long does that last?

NP. This. It’s not like every guidance out of the CDC has been based on science and data. There was never any scientific basis for outdoor masking, nor for 6 foot distancing (a rule that, just like school closures, was based on assumptions derived from influenza transmission data). So while I don’t believe in any kind of conspiracy on the part of government agencies, I do believe in the phenomenon of mass hysteria and its influence on government officials, as well as in the tendency of public health officials to take the most cautious approach possible and their failure to look at the bigger picture and consider other risks besides those of infectious disease.

[Anonymous]

This article is worth reading if you are inclined to follow “scientifically-based official government advice” at this stage of the game.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-war-on-reality-gutentag

[Anonymous]

Journal of American Medical Association on masks in healthy children

Title: Experimental Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Content in Inhaled Air With or Without Face Masks in Healthy Children
A Randomized Clinical Trial



https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2781743

[Anonymous]

There is debate about whether the measurements in that article are meaningful.

[Anonymous]

Not all kids are low risk. Kids with cancer and other immunocompromised children are high-risk. And research strongly suggests that kids with developmental disorders or intellectual disabilities have a higher risk of illness and serious outcomes. But screw those kids, right?

Your ableist solutions puts the onus on disabled folks to figure out how to keep themselves safe — now that much harder in a world where safety measures have become politicized. In a caring society, that shouldn’t be how it goes.

You shrug your shoulders, tell us that those kids will disabilities will just have to hope the masks are enough to protect them against 6 hours of indoor exposure, because your 4yo is “shy” and can’t wear a mask. Never mind that it means that masks will become the discriminatory marker of who is special needs or not. Never mind that we’re legally entitled to an equitable education free from discrimination. Just keep putting yourself first, always!!!

[Anonymous]

My disabled dc cannot bear a mask on his face. So, speak for yourself but our family needs school mask requirements to be optional.s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the rationale for dropping masks indoors since they are not vaccinated? I agree, no masks outdoors though.

Because they are uncomfortable, interfere with teaching, and uneccesary when there’s extremely low community spread.

My kids have not complained about masks while doing IPL. What interferes with learning is going to school 2 hours a day, 4 or 2 days a week, as is the case for my kids in a DCPS ES. Masks while indoors is the easiest thing to keep doing so we can return to a normal schedule until kids can get the vaccine

a vaccine for kids may never happen.

I'm surprised how little people are talking about this. The FDA recently had a meeting where they were debating whether the rationale for vaccinating children is strong enough given their extremely low risk. Many other countries are only vaccinating high-risk kids.

There is also serious debate going on about whether you can authorize the vaccine under an EUA for small children, again given their extremely low risk. It's not really an emergency for them. Not doing an EUA would definitely push the timeline out further.

It's one of the reasons why Pfizer is testing much lower doses in trials - the tension between whether the vaccine or COVID has more risk for small children. Again, both are likely to be extremely low-risk - but will the vaccines be so much lower risk than already low risk from COVID?

It feels like we are making all sort of policies around the timing of a childrens' vaccine - which may not happen or happen anytime soon - versus measuring the risk of spread in the community. If there is no EUA for the children's vaccine but we're below a 1% positivity rate as we are now and COVID remains low-risk to children, are we going to mask them for another year or two? That just seems unnecessarily harmful.

THANK YOU for this wise, reasonable post. I agree completely.

[Anonymous]

Masks should be optional in schools. My kids don’t mind wearing masks but it just seems totally unnecessary. High vaccination rates in adults, case numbers are so low.

It’s like putting kids in bike helmets to go outside for recess. Sure, it could prevent a serious injury. But the likelihood of a head injury at recess is really low.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is debate about whether the measurements in that article are meaningful.

well we all know that masks are uncomfortable in the heat and uneccesary outdoors. so why don’t we start there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not all kids are low risk. Kids with cancer and other immunocompromised children are high-risk. And research strongly suggests that kids with developmental disorders or intellectual disabilities have a higher risk of illness and serious outcomes. But screw those kids, right?

Your ableist solutions puts the onus on disabled folks to figure out how to keep themselves safe — now that much harder in a world where safety measures have become politicized. In a caring society, that shouldn’t be how it goes.

You shrug your shoulders, tell us that those kids will disabilities will just have to hope the masks are enough to protect them against 6 hours of indoor exposure, because your 4yo is “shy” and can’t wear a mask. Never mind that it means that masks will become the discriminatory marker of who is special needs or not. Never mind that we’re legally entitled to an equitable education free from discrimination. Just keep putting yourself first, always!!!

umm … many kids with special needs are also harmed by the mask requirement. you’re making a really poor and perhaps dishonest argument. the idea that everyone needs to adopt the maximum mitigation based on the precautionary principal forever is just not tenable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My disabled dc cannot bear a mask on his face. So, speak for yourself but our family needs school mask requirements to be optional.s

my DS with ASD is having an even harder time integraing socially into school and camp. He doesn’t seem to physically mind the mask, but at this point I do think it interferes with him being about to obtain the social information he needs. I think it’s also interfering with his ability to bond with the adults which is a major way he adjusts to a new setting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not all kids are low risk. Kids with cancer and other immunocompromised children are high-risk. And research strongly suggests that kids with developmental disorders or intellectual disabilities have a higher risk of illness and serious outcomes. But screw those kids, right?

Your ableist solutions puts the onus on disabled folks to figure out how to keep themselves safe — now that much harder in a world where safety measures have become politicized. In a caring society, that shouldn’t be how it goes.

You shrug your shoulders, tell us that those kids will disabilities will just have to hope the masks are enough to protect them against 6 hours of indoor exposure, because your 4yo is “shy” and can’t wear a mask. Never mind that it means that masks will become the discriminatory marker of who is special needs or not. Never mind that we’re legally entitled to an equitable education free from discrimination. Just keep putting yourself first, always!!!

umm … many kids with special needs are also harmed by the mask requirement. you’re making a really poor and perhaps dishonest argument. the idea that everyone needs to adopt the maximum mitigation based on the precautionary principal forever is just not tenable.

How are the immunocompromised kids not put in grave danger each and every winter by influenza? The flu is deadly to these kids.

Are you suggesting ALL kids wear masks forever?

I don't follow your logic. Please explain.

[Anonymous]

This article by Duke researchers found that masks were THE factor stopping COVID spread in schools n North Carolina: https://corporate.dukehealth.org/news/report-shows-nc-k-12-schools-reopened-safely-paving-way-schools-nationwide-limit-covid-19?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=their%20findings&utm_campaign=Weekly_2021-07-03

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This article by Duke researchers found that masks were THE factor stopping COVID spread in schools n North Carolina: https://corporate.dukehealth.org/news/report-shows-nc-k-12-schools-reopened-safely-paving-way-schools-nationwide-limit-covid-19?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=their%20findings&utm_campaign=Weekly_2021-07-03

but now rates are low, and the biggest vector (adults) are vaccinated. so the situation is evolving. I anticipate masks in the fall indoors and I’m ok with it for older kids. but not outdoors at all, not for kids under 5, and not for vaxxed older kids.