When should DC drop its school mask mandate?

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03/08/2022 14:47

Subject: Re:When should DC drop its school mask mandate?

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Anonymous

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Effective February 25, 2022, CDC is exercising its enforcement discretion to not require that people wear masks on buses or vans operated by public or private school systems, including early care and education/child care programs. CDC is making this change to align with updated guidance that no longer recommends universal indoor mask wearing in K-12 and early education settings in areas with a low or medium COVID-19 Community Level."

If you want the full text.
https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/masks/mask-travel-guidance.html

How is it that the CDC is going one step further saying hey kids really don’t need to wear masks not even on the school bus - and DC kids are STILL masked for school and daycare. This is insanity.

I get the impression that a lot of people in DC think the masks actually work. They truly think removing them will harm people. I don’t understand how you can think this way after the recent omicron wave (that masking works). It’s going to take some time for these people to come around.

Yeah. I mean, masks do work -- particularly an N95 on an older person -- but they have limits. I know people outside of DC who are beside themselves over their preschools dropping masks. I know people who are very cautious about covid who have literally told me they'd be more comfortable visiting indoor spaces when case counts were high but masks required, than they would when case counts were low and masks optional.

It's unfortunate because obviously there is science to support masking to a degree but they've become like a magical talisman for some people. (Honestly no other way to describe it if anyone feels reassured by cloth face coverings hanging down below 2 year old noses.)

I think the issue is that masks work when they are of a specifically quality, worn correctly. People in real life (meaning, not medical settings) don't wear N95s (largely) and don't wear them 8 hours a day and don't wear them correctly for 8 hours a day. So all of those things impact efficacy. Kids, particularly, don't wear masks well for 8 hours. So efficacy at reducing transmission is of course lower or non-existent (overall) in school settings.

Add to this all of these findings that kids don't spread well to each other to begin with, and you get a lower risk of them spreading it anyway, so it's difficult to see any impact of the intervention (masks).

This. Even if you get your kid a child-size KF94 or KN95 it's not providing the air seal a professionally fitted N95 does. Most of the air doesn't actually pass through the filter but around the sides, and all that air leakage diminishes the efficacy significantly. People are fooling themselves that even "high quality" masks on kids provide a lot of protection.