Estimated 2/3 of kids wore no mask today at my children's school.

One nation. Under Father Fauci. Masked up. Forever and ever. Amen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a mask policy at work too, but in my office with the door closed I can remove my mask. It’s not the same as forcing kids to wear masks.

That's YOUR office and YOUR experience. That doesn't make it universal. Teachers, people that work in cubical, people in the medical profession or many people in blue collar jobs have to wear them the entire time they are at work. Once again, think of others not just yourself.

You should think about how your opinion is forcing all of these workers to wear masks. They aren’t all wearing them because they want to. They are wearing them becwuse owners and companies are requiring them to to appease customers like you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My children are so excited to go to school without masks and experience a step closer to a “normal” day for the first time in almost 2 years!

Smiling faces all around tonight at the news that they can stop wearing masks all day every day.

How very loving of you to be thinking of just yourselves! We’ll done, Catholic family!!

Symptoms and mortality are now on par with the flu.

"Mask-up" tyrants getting flustered they're losing control.

Please do some reading on the long term health effects of previous flu pandemics.. Just one example, Parkinson’s rates skyrocketed within a few decades in those who had been infected but survived. Comparing infection to a one week flu is an inaccurate exchange because you are ignoring long term public health effects of a mass viral illness. . In addition to not wanting my family to suffer that way, I don’t want our already broken healthcare system trying to handle it.

There are lots of pathogens suspected of activating auto-immune or chronic conditions. Epstein-Barr for MS, strep for heart problems, and unknown diseases are suspected to be related to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or even Alzheimers. Even if COVID did have this effect on small numbers of people (you have no evidence for this, and I can't help but notice none of the other 4 common-cold coronaviruses are on this list, but for purposes of argument let's accept the possibility) it wouldn't matter, because no one seriously thinks that COVID is going to go away. Which means that sooner or later everyone is getting exposed and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Omicron is nearly as infectious as measles. It has animal reservoirs everywhere now (minks, hamsters, cats, deer, you name it). The vaccines reduce but don't eliminate transmission. Short of living your life with an N95 respirator on, there's nothing you can do to prevent yourself from being exposed at some point. If you think anything we're doing right now is leading to COVID just going away, I have bad news for you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If masks are so useless, then why do doctors and hospitals use them?

Has anyone who decided to unmask their child at school starting today actually run it by their own medical provider and gotten input? I’d be really curious to hear if any pediatricians are suggesting to parents that they remove masks.

Sadly, Any dr in a group practice will be prohibited from saying that. You have to ask an independent dr. Which most pediatricians aren’t.

And why do you think that is? Because i would be incorrect?????

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Report - about 90% of the students wore a mask at our school today. Well done. The anti-mask contingent is small and loud. But smarter heads have prevailed.

We were just waiting to see if any kids would go without mask. Now that we know some were brave enough to get it started (in this far-left anti-science area) we will also join them and have our kids go without mask. It's just virtual signaling at this point.

Some call it brave some call it uneducated and to clarify, THIS would be anti science.

Anonymous wrote:We have a mask policy at work too, but in my office with the door closed I can remove my mask. It’s not the same as forcing kids to wear masks.

That's YOUR office and YOUR experience. That doesn't make it universal. Teachers, people that work in cubical, people in the medical profession or many people in blue collar jobs have to wear them the entire time they are at work. Once again, think of others not just yourself.

Anonymous wrote:If masks are so useless, then why do doctors and hospitals use them?

Has anyone who decided to unmask their child at school starting today actually run it by their own medical provider and gotten input? I’d be really curious to hear if any pediatricians are suggesting to parents that they remove masks.

Sadly, Any dr in a group practice will be prohibited from saying that. You have to ask an independent dr. Which most pediatricians aren’t.

If masks are so useless, then why do doctors and hospitals use them?

Has anyone who decided to unmask their child at school starting today actually run it by their own medical provider and gotten input? I’d be really curious to hear if any pediatricians are suggesting to parents that they remove masks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are people in this thread saying masks don’t work when the studies show otherwise? University of Michigan examined masking in schools and found spread was 62% higher in schools without masks.

https://www.abc12.com/coronavirus/university-of-michigan-study-shows-mask-mandates-at-schools-show-lower-covid-transmission-rates/article_9dfcd525-94d5-50cb-9b00-ac1c2171d7fe.html

Where’s the study? Is it peer reviewed? It is science? After the CDC itself had to walk back it’s own cherry-picked “studies” when it was called out for lack of scientific standards, I don’t trust a local news story in Michigan about supposed study.

And here’s another study from North Carolina in the journal Pediatrics showing effectiveness of universal mask wearing in schools.

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/149/1/e2021054396/183460/School-Safety-Masking-and-the-Delta-Variant

Where’s the study showing they aren’t effective? The Atlantic article doesn’t count.

If you read the study you would see that it measured a 2-month period in the summer (bad given the seasonality of the virus), took place when masking was universal (bad - no control group for comparison), and instead compared in-school transmission to community-wide rates of infection. Making the comparison is fine if your goal is to show that schools are generally safe places that experience much lower rates of transmission than the communities they are in. But the last paragraph, without evidence, attributes the difference in infection rates almost entirely to masking. Not to demographic differences, not to ventilation (NC summers mean A/C is on all the time), not to factors intrinsic to school environments as opposed to where the majority of transmission occur. Just masks.

The problem with asking for research showing masks don't work is that studies have a null hypothesis. This means that they start with the hypothesis that two factors are not related, and the studies seeks to disprove it by showing a statistical correlation. A study with a reportable finding is said to have "disproven the null hypothesis".

If, in truth, there is no relationship between the two factors being measured, then most studies will show little connection and thus get reported as "inconclusive", or as having "failed to disprove the null hypothesis". Typically academics cover themselves by saying that more research is needed, or they might adjust their parameters until they do come up with a statistical finding (this is called p-hacking). If study after study (good studies, mind you, not dumb ones looking at 2 months of cases for a seasonal virus) shows only a weak or absent connection, then rational scientists will recommend against a thing because it hasn't been shown to work.

In the case of masks in school, we're in this odd situation where even the studies that purport to show a benefit either 1) aren't looking at school environments but communities as a whole, or 2) show only a very weak effect that could easily be random chance (or raises the possibility of p-hacking), or 3) suffer from poor study design that fails to identify causation. But because the situation is so politicized and organizations like the CDC have invested so much credibility in this issue, that very weak evidence is treated like really good evidence and the onus is placed on the critics to somehow prove a negative. That's not how study design and statistics are supposed to work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My children are so excited to go to school without masks and experience a step closer to a “normal” day for the first time in almost 2 years!

Smiling faces all around tonight at the news that they can stop wearing masks all day every day.

How very loving of you to be thinking of just yourselves! We’ll done, Catholic family!!

Symptoms and mortality are now on par with the flu.

"Mask-up" tyrants getting flustered they're losing control.

Please do some reading on the long term health effects of previous flu pandemics.. Just one example, Parkinson’s rates skyrocketed within a few decades in those who had been infected but survived. Comparing infection to a one week flu is an inaccurate exchange because you are ignoring long term public health effects of a mass viral illness. . In addition to not wanting my family to suffer that way, I don’t want our already broken healthcare system trying to handle it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Report - about 90% of the students wore a mask at our school today. Well done. The anti-mask contingent is small and loud. But smarter heads have prevailed.

We were just waiting to see if any kids would go without mask. Now that we know some were brave enough to get it started (in this far-left anti-science area) we will also join them and have our kids go without mask. It's just virtual signaling at this point.

almost 1/2 unmasked at ours

That is great news! Hope they all had a wonderful day. I hope my ADW students have this choice restored to them soon as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Report - about 90% of the students wore a mask at our school today. Well done. The anti-mask contingent is small and loud. But smarter heads have prevailed.

We were just waiting to see if any kids would go without mask. Now that we know some were brave enough to get it started (in this far-left anti-science area) we will also join them and have our kids go without mask. It's just virtual signaling at this point.

almost 1/2 unmasked at ours

Let me guess where you live…

Fairfax

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Report - about 90% of the students wore a mask at our school today. Well done. The anti-mask contingent is small and loud. But smarter heads have prevailed.

We were just waiting to see if any kids would go without mask. Now that we know some were brave enough to get it started (in this far-left anti-science area) we will also join them and have our kids go without mask. It's just virtual signaling at this point.

almost 1/2 unmasked at ours

Let me guess where you live…

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Report - about 90% of the students wore a mask at our school today. Well done. The anti-mask contingent is small and loud. But smarter heads have prevailed.

We were just waiting to see if any kids would go without mask. Now that we know some were brave enough to get it started (in this far-left anti-science area) we will also join them and have our kids go without mask. It's just virtual signaling at this point.

almost 1/2 unmasked at ours