APS mask policy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are still masking for the foreseeable future.

I tried talking to my kid this morning about treating everyone with the same kindness at school whether they were wearing a mask or not and he was legitimately offended, saying that people who were not wearing masks were failing to take care of the people in the community who had lower immunity levels or at risk people at home, and I said we would have to continue the conversation this evening (because, though I didn't say it, he wasn't really wrong and I don't know a great response to this argument).

This would be hilarious if it weren’t for how much you have warped your kid. (I’m assuming this is not troll or satire.)

For the first year+ of Covid I took comfort being on the side of sanity. Wear a mask, distance, just be a decent normal person. The lunatic anti-maskers had politicized basic public health and common sense. I got into a loud disagreement with one of these dopes at the post office.

But here we are and the tides have turned 1000%. It is now without question the hall monitor, holier-than-thou never ending Covid drones who have gone unreasonable and highly political. Your kid is “offended” by people who are returning to normal as the science dictates, with CDC signoff? And you’re dumbfounded for a response in the face of the sheer moral force of this view? Get real lady. You’re a superior busybody and your kid picked it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still masking for the foreseeable future.

I tried talking to my kid this morning about treating everyone with the same kindness at school whether they were wearing a mask or not and he was legitimately offended, saying that people who were not wearing masks were failing to take care of the people in the community who had lower immunity levels or at risk people at home, and I said we would have to continue the conversation this evening (because, though I didn't say it, he wasn't really wrong and I don't know a great response to this argument).

Your son sounds like a nice kid. I can tell you my perspective as the parent of a mildly autistic kid. Despite his disability, in March 2020 he was a happy, outgoing, curious, albeit awkward kid. The APS decision to abandon all teaching for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year was disastrously bad for him because it cut him off from some great teachers and kids. We are glad that school (eventually) reopened but the masks present two challenges to him. First, under the best of circumstances (without masks) understanding subtle social cues and messages is a significant challenge for him. But with everyone wearing a mask it's nearly impossible. He has more or less decided that making friends is a code he will never crack and having a friend is not something he really even thinks about anymore. He comes home from school exhausted and dispirited nearly every day from trying to decipher the world. Second, he has sensory issues and wearing a mask is uncomfortable for him, both with respect to the feeling of the mask on his face and just plain simple breathing. Weirdly though, even though he is fully vaccinated and has had covid, part of him is also scared of taking off his mask because he has received angry reprimands from so many adults who have no idea of his situation but have convinced him that the mask is saving his life. Every time I see a post from an adult that no child minds wearing a mask, I feel like screaming.

Bottom line, the happy, outgoing, curious kid from March 2020 gets through his day by taking 15 mg of Lexapro every morning.

I read this and wanted to cry. I really feel for kids in this pandemic and especially vulnerable kids who have really not been considered. Hope he is able now to develop friendships more easily with the masks off.

I feel bad for this kid, too. It does seem like some folks are saying that it's okay to want to help one another as a society by taking masks off so this kid can try to read other people's expressions, but it's a step too far to want to help one another as a society by keeping masks on to prevent transmission and stop people from becoming severely ill and/or dying from the disease. I hope this kid starts to have an easier time, but I must say we will still be wearing masks because for us the calculus weighs heavier on the side of reducing spread and preventing death and severe illness. YMMV.

Have you been hiding under a rock? Covid has spread. It’s here. It’s everywhere. It’s not in a night market in China (I mean, it’s there too). There is literally nothing anyone has done anywhere to prevent or even mitigate spread. Even the vaccine doesn’t stop spread! Stop lying to yourself, your kids and our kids!

I'm not the person you're responding too, but as of today VDH reports a total of 40,149 COVID cases ever. Arlington County's population is 234,842. Clearly COVID is not everywhere. I'd venture to say a lot has been done to prevent and mitigate the spread.

[Anonymous]

AEM has a hilarious poll right now on what your kid will do tomorrow, with some of the nuttiest comments underneath. Some people think masks stop the stomach flu (a non-respiratory virus that's prevented via handwashing)! LOL

It's a ton of people who don't follow the science or have any perspective or risk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still masking for the foreseeable future.

I tried talking to my kid this morning about treating everyone with the same kindness at school whether they were wearing a mask or not and he was legitimately offended, saying that people who were not wearing masks were failing to take care of the people in the community who had lower immunity levels or at risk people at home, and I said we would have to continue the conversation this evening (because, though I didn't say it, he wasn't really wrong and I don't know a great response to this argument).

This would be hilarious if it weren’t for how much you have warped your kid. (I’m assuming this is not troll or satire.)

For the first year+ of Covid I took comfort being on the side of sanity. Wear a mask, distance, just be a decent normal person. The lunatic anti-maskers had politicized basic public health and common sense. I got into a loud disagreement with one of these dopes at the post office.

But here we are and the tides have turned 1000%. It is now without question the hall monitor, holier-than-thou never ending Covid drones who have gone unreasonable and highly political. Your kid is “offended” by people who are returning to normal as the science dictates, with CDC signoff? And you’re dumbfounded for a response in the face of the sheer moral force of this view? Get real lady. You’re a superior busybody and your kid picked it up.

I mean what the kid is saying is exactly the original reasoning behind mitigation measures at the beginning of the pandemic.

People on all sides claim science is on their side. I haven't seen the science that says masks are 100% ineffective. I have seen the science that says masks mitigate the spread. In fact, the first result from googling "do masks work with new covid strain" turned up a Jan 2021 article claiming masks are 79% effective. Its on the PNAS website (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118

I don't know about you, but the antimaskers I talked with last year kept ranting about how the CDC can't be trusted because their science is politicized, but apparently now the CDC is pure science and not at all political.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still masking for the foreseeable future.

I tried talking to my kid this morning about treating everyone with the same kindness at school whether they were wearing a mask or not and he was legitimately offended, saying that people who were not wearing masks were failing to take care of the people in the community who had lower immunity levels or at risk people at home, and I said we would have to continue the conversation this evening (because, though I didn't say it, he wasn't really wrong and I don't know a great response to this argument).

This would be hilarious if it weren’t for how much you have warped your kid. (I’m assuming this is not troll or satire.)

For the first year+ of Covid I took comfort being on the side of sanity. Wear a mask, distance, just be a decent normal person. The lunatic anti-maskers had politicized basic public health and common sense. I got into a loud disagreement with one of these dopes at the post office.

But here we are and the tides have turned 1000%. It is now without question the hall monitor, holier-than-thou never ending Covid drones who have gone unreasonable and highly political. Your kid is “offended” by people who are returning to normal as the science dictates, with CDC signoff? And you’re dumbfounded for a response in the face of the sheer moral force of this view? Get real lady. You’re a superior busybody and your kid picked it up.

I mean what the kid is saying is exactly the original reasoning behind mitigation measures at the beginning of the pandemic.

People on all sides claim science is on their side. I haven't seen the science that says masks are 100% ineffective. I have seen the science that says masks mitigate the spread. In fact, the first result from googling "do masks work with new covid strain" turned up a Jan 2021 article claiming masks are 79% effective. Its on the PNAS website (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118

I don't know about you, but the antimaskers I talked with last year kept ranting about how the CDC can't be trusted because their science is politicized, but apparently now the CDC is pure science and not at all political.

You really can't be this dense? Do you read what you cite? It's a model by crazy mask evangelist Jeremy Howard, who used models (crazy when you assume that masks work, the models you build with that assumption baked in shows that masks work too).

Notably, the study (from January 2021) says that there are no RCTs on masks. Now there are - the Bangladesh RCT, a huge 300K+ RCT that showed cloth masks were not statistically signficant and surgical only were (barely) for people 50 or over. This was all before a vaccine too.

[Anonymous]

I may have missed this, but is the quarantine policy impacted by whether or not kids are masked? My kid is vaccinated, trying to understand if he would be more subject to "close contact" quarantines if he's not masked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are still masking for the foreseeable future.

I tried talking to my kid this morning about treating everyone with the same kindness at school whether they were wearing a mask or not and he was legitimately offended, saying that people who were not wearing masks were failing to take care of the people in the community who had lower immunity levels or at risk people at home, and I said we would have to continue the conversation this evening (because, though I didn't say it, he wasn't really wrong and I don't know a great response to this argument).

This would be hilarious if it weren’t for how much you have warped your kid. (I’m assuming this is not troll or satire.)

For the first year+ of Covid I took comfort being on the side of sanity. Wear a mask, distance, just be a decent normal person. The lunatic anti-maskers had politicized basic public health and common sense. I got into a loud disagreement with one of these dopes at the post office.

But here we are and the tides have turned 1000%. It is now without question the hall monitor, holier-than-thou never ending Covid drones who have gone unreasonable and highly political. Your kid is “offended” by people who are returning to normal as the science dictates, with CDC signoff? And you’re dumbfounded for a response in the face of the sheer moral force of this view? Get real lady. You’re a superior busybody and your kid picked it up.

I mean what the kid is saying is exactly the original reasoning behind mitigation measures at the beginning of the pandemic.

People on all sides claim science is on their side. I haven't seen the science that says masks are 100% ineffective. I have seen the science that says masks mitigate the spread. In fact, the first result from googling "do masks work with new covid strain" turned up a Jan 2021 article claiming masks are 79% effective. Its on the PNAS website (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118

I don't know about you, but the antimaskers I talked with last year kept ranting about how the CDC can't be trusted because their science is politicized, but apparently now the CDC is pure science and not at all political.

You really can't be this dense? Do you read what you cite? It's a model by crazy mask evangelist Jeremy Howard, who used models (crazy when you assume that masks work, the models you build with that assumption baked in shows that masks work too).

Notably, the study (from January 2021) says that there are no RCTs on masks. Now there are - the Bangladesh RCT, a huge 300K+ RCT that showed cloth masks were not statistically signficant and surgical only were (barely) for people 50 or over. This was all before a vaccine too.

I've never heard of Jeremy Howard. I didn't read the full article. My point was simply there is a lot of "science" on all sides. Would be nice if you'd provide links.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I mean what the kid is saying is exactly the original reasoning behind mitigation measures at the beginning of the pandemic.

People on all sides claim science is on their side. I haven't seen the science that says masks are 100% ineffective. I have seen the science that says masks mitigate the spread. In fact, the first result from googling "do masks work with new covid strain" turned up a Jan 2021 article claiming masks are 79% effective. Its on the PNAS website (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118

I don't know about you, but the antimaskers I talked with last year kept ranting about how the CDC can't be trusted because their science is politicized, but apparently now the CDC is pure science and not at all political.

You really can't be this dense? Do you read what you cite? It's a model by crazy mask evangelist Jeremy Howard, who used models (crazy when you assume that masks work, the models you build with that assumption baked in shows that masks work too).

Notably, the study (from January 2021) says that there are no RCTs on masks. Now there are - the Bangladesh RCT, a huge 300K+ RCT that showed cloth masks were not statistically signficant and surgical only were (barely) for people 50 or over. This was all before a vaccine too.

I've never heard of Jeremy Howard. I didn't read the full article. My point was simply there is a lot of "science" on all sides. Would be nice if you'd provide links.

It's by far the highest value mask study because it has an actual control group. The mainstream media covered it as "masks work!" when in fact it said the exact opposite.

The study:
https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publications/Mask_Second_Stage_Paper_20211108.pdf.pdf

An explainer:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94399

Here's an explanation of the tiny # of cases prevented in a pre-vaccine environment by surgical for 50 and older:
http://www.argmin.net/2021/11/23/mask-rct-revisited/

All very reminiscent of the latest CDC "study" that had a tiny footnote saying "not statistically significant":
https://reason.com/2022/02/07/that-study-of-face-masks-does-not-show-what-the-cdc-claims/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I may have missed this, but is the quarantine policy impacted by whether or not kids are masked? My kid is vaccinated, trying to understand if he would be more subject to "close contact" quarantines if he's not masked.

Vaccinated kids do not quarantine if they don’t have symptoms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I mean what the kid is saying is exactly the original reasoning behind mitigation measures at the beginning of the pandemic.

People on all sides claim science is on their side. I haven't seen the science that says masks are 100% ineffective. I have seen the science that says masks mitigate the spread. In fact, the first result from googling "do masks work with new covid strain" turned up a Jan 2021 article claiming masks are 79% effective. Its on the PNAS website (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118

I don't know about you, but the antimaskers I talked with last year kept ranting about how the CDC can't be trusted because their science is politicized, but apparently now the CDC is pure science and not at all political.

You really can't be this dense? Do you read what you cite? It's a model by crazy mask evangelist Jeremy Howard, who used models (crazy when you assume that masks work, the models you build with that assumption baked in shows that masks work too).

Notably, the study (from January 2021) says that there are no RCTs on masks. Now there are - the Bangladesh RCT, a huge 300K+ RCT that showed cloth masks were not statistically signficant and surgical only were (barely) for people 50 or over. This was all before a vaccine too.

I've never heard of Jeremy Howard. I didn't read the full article. My point was simply there is a lot of "science" on all sides. Would be nice if you'd provide links.

It's by far the highest value mask study because it has an actual control group. The mainstream media covered it as "masks work!" when in fact it said the exact opposite.

The study:
https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publications/Mask_Second_Stage_Paper_20211108.pdf.pdf

An explainer:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94399

Here's an explanation of the tiny # of cases prevented in a pre-vaccine environment by surgical for 50 and older:
http://www.argmin.net/2021/11/23/mask-rct-revisited/

All very reminiscent of the latest CDC "study" that had a tiny footnote saying "not statistically significant":
https://reason.com/2022/02/07/that-study-of-face-masks-does-not-show-what-the-cdc-claims/

Thank you. I appreciate this. I believe the study was about cloth and surgical masks. I don't know anyone arguing for those, but for kn95s or similar. So I guess I agree with you that cloth masks aren't effective, but there are better and more effective options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I may have missed this, but is the quarantine policy impacted by whether or not kids are masked? My kid is vaccinated, trying to understand if he would be more subject to "close contact" quarantines if he's not masked.

They haven’t released that yet.

[Anonymous]

Wearing a N95 or KN95 mask associated with lower odds of testing positive for covid. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm

[Anonymous]

Dr. Glaucomflecken weighs in on the new CDC mask guidance:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I may have missed this, but is the quarantine policy impacted by whether or not kids are masked? My kid is vaccinated, trying to understand if he would be more subject to "close contact" quarantines if he's not masked.

They haven’t released that yet.

Unmasked kids will have to quarantine if exposed at 6 feet vs 3 feet. Unless vaccinated of course, because vaxxed kids don’t need to quarantine. But it’s under the quarantine guidelines on the website. So if your maskless and vaxxed, nothing has changed.

[Anonymous]

This is a good step forward for the kids, particularly the younger elementary kids. One of my child’s school went mask optional in February. About half of the class was unmasked. The other half had cloth masks. It’s been fine. It will be okay. Kids will get sick with colds and virus, maybe even Covid. Focus on boosting immunity, managing stress and anxiety, figuring out a way to move forward. The kids need to see each other’s faces.