4 ms·

I am not trolling against these unnecessary anti-covid measures by providing 1. statistical evidence that shows the fear of covid in children is disproportionat

I am not trolling against these unnecessary anti-covid measures by providing 1. statistical evidence that shows the fear of covid in children is disproportionate to the risk covid poses to children, 2. logical arguments for why mask-wearing should not be mandated for children. Calling it trolling is exactly the kind of intolerant hostility that prevents a debate on the issue and puts society on autopilot to never-ending restrictive measures that are wildly disproportionate to the danger posed to children. >>Perhaps there is some data on how harmful halloween masks are to kids. Or on pubescent Muslim girls/teens... (/sarc) We don't wear halloween masks for most of every day, every day for months on end. The vast majority of Muslim girls who wear hijab don't wear a niqab that covers the face. This a bad faith effort to find comparable situations. Facial expressions are extremely important for communication. Forcing children to largely make do without them could very plausibly - I would say highly probably - harm their social development. This is not far-out speculation, and your smug dismissal of it is reckless and irresponsible. >>The burden would be on you to show actual harm from wearing a mask when thousands do it without harm all day every day (for work and for disease prevention) We have never had children wear masks for much of every day for months on end. Even medical professionals - who are adults and have already had normal childhoods without their faces being covered - don't wear masks all day at work on a regular basis. Masks are only worn in specific situations that don't encompass most of their work hours, like time in surgery. >>Also it is not just about the kids whom you wrongly assume to be invulnerable The evidence shows they are no more vulnerable to covid than to the flu. Masking the entire population of children is not a proportionate response to the risk covid poses to them. >>it is about not making another petri dish to both further spread the disease to those whom the kids come in contact. Children should not be burdened with daily masking to protect adults, and in any case, children are not known to be a high-risk transmission vector: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/147/4/e2020048090 https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/147/4/e202004... The disappointing thing is that your responses to my arguments have been very weak - like comparing daily mask wearing to once a year Halloween mask wearing - showing you actually don't want to have a good faith debate on this issue.

jasonlaramburu 5y ago
>The evidence shows they are no more vulnerable to covid than flu. 5 kids have now died in Mississippi from COVID in the current Delta Wave [1]. In all of 2019, there was 1 pediatric flu death in Mississippi [2]. I chose MS because they are in an active outbreak. [1]https://www.mississippifreepress.org/14800/mississippi-8th-grader-dies-with-covid-hours-after-gov-reeves-downplays-child-cases/ https://www.mississippifreepress.org/14800/mississippi-8th-g... [2] https://www.wlbt.com/2019/11/27/mississippi-has-highest-flu-like-activity-united-states-according-cdc/ https://www.wlbt.com/2019/11/27/mississippi-has-highest-flu-...
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  The Delta wave has been ongoing all summer, infecting millions of people so far. How many children have died from covid over the summer? Data from England, where Delta variant deaths are tracked, shows that during the period under study, only 8 people under the age of 50 died from it. EDIT, as I'm being rate-limited: Even with the differences you note, the fact that England, with a population of 55 million, had only 8 deaths of those under the age of 50 from the Delta variant, after a month of Delta variant propagation in the country, definitively shows it's not a significant risk to children.
  - jasonlaramburu 5y ago
    England is really more comparable to a single large US state, or collection of states. The delta wave is moving through different US states at different times. Mississippi is one of the least vaccinated states, far lower % than England. They are also likely not yet at the peak of their wave.
toss1 5y ago
The FIRST order of business is to control a known deadly pathogen that is airborne, and has now spawned a variant that has very high contagion levels, with R0 in the 5-9 range. It has been repeatedly proven that vaccines, masks (particularly N95/FFP3 level), and ventilation work against airborne diseases in general and CV-19 in particular. The hard peer-reviewed scientific papers on all of this are so legion that I won't attempt to link them here. Even if we assume that COVID-19 and flu are relatively similar in risk to children that get it (it's impact is already greater [1], and is already a top-10 killer of children [2]), the fact is that CV-19 has an R0 of 5-9, vs Flu at around 1.2, so being much more contagious, it will affect many more kids, and otherwise unlikely events will become common. Ignoring the risk is foolish. Schools are already known to be a large vector for airborne diseases, and the CDC advocates all students and teachers who can to get flu vaccines for this reason. As noted above, I watched as report after report from Israel, BG, Quebec and others showed general population cases tracking school openings, vacations, and closings. There is solid evidence that Delta is not only a risk among children, but also to the community at large. Against this, you posit some hypothetical emotional harm to children of wearing masks. This is absurd on its face, but we'll discuss it. About masks in general, there are many other professions that wear them all day, not only physicians whom you glibly dismiss. I've read countless physicaian/nurse/HC accounts mentioning wearing masks all day. I've worn masks or even full respirators all day for some tasks in my composites shop, and also when helping others with drywall or other dusty work. There are many other professions that do so. This is not a problem. Hell, I've worn them skiing all day. There are also multiple cultures who do. You don't think Muslims are a good enough example, consider the Inuit, who wear coverings face coverings for long periods daily almost from birth, barely exposing their eyes. Humans are the most adaptable species on the planet, and children are the most adaptable among us. Your claims of some kind of emotional harm are pure conjecture. Seriously, you dismiss all other evidence yet produce not a scintilla of your own. You claim you aren't trolling, but if not, then this looks an awful lot like a lot of motivated reasoning around supporting an "I don't like it" attitude. Remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The precautionary principle says to FIRST take care of the large, deadly, demonstrable, and present danger. You want to instead put a marginal, possibly emotional, hypothetical, and at-best-distant danger in the front. That is not a recipe for success. [1] https://www.idsociety.org/multimedia/videos/idsa-media-briefing-covid-vaccines--the-delta-variant/ https://www.idsociety.org/multimedia/videos/idsa-media-brief... [2] https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-kids-schools-reopening-cases https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-kids-s...

jasonlaramburu 5y ago

>The evidence shows they are no more vulnerable to covid than flu. 5 kids have now died in Mississippi from COVID in the current Delta Wave [1]. In all of 2019, there was 1 pediatric flu death in Mississippi [2]. I chose MS because they are in an active outbreak. [1]https://www.mississippifreepress.org/14800/mississippi-8th-grader-dies-with-covid-hours-after-gov-reeves-downplays-child-cases/ https://www.mississippifreepress.org/14800/mississippi-8th-g... [2] https://www.wlbt.com/2019/11/27/mississippi-has-highest-flu-like-activity-united-states-according-cdc/ https://www.wlbt.com/2019/11/27/mississippi-has-highest-flu-...

CryptoPunk 5y ago
The Delta wave has been ongoing all summer, infecting millions of people so far. How many children have died from covid over the summer? Data from England, where Delta variant deaths are tracked, shows that during the period under study, only 8 people under the age of 50 died from it. EDIT, as I'm being rate-limited: Even with the differences you note, the fact that England, with a population of 55 million, had only 8 deaths of those under the age of 50 from the Delta variant, after a month of Delta variant propagation in the country, definitively shows it's not a significant risk to children.
- jasonlaramburu 5y ago
  England is really more comparable to a single large US state, or collection of states. The delta wave is moving through different US states at different times. Mississippi is one of the least vaccinated states, far lower % than England. They are also likely not yet at the peak of their wave.

toss1 5y ago

The FIRST order of business is to control a known deadly pathogen that is airborne, and has now spawned a variant that has very high contagion levels, with R0 in the 5-9 range. It has been repeatedly proven that vaccines, masks (particularly N95/FFP3 level), and ventilation work against airborne diseases in general and CV-19 in particular. The hard peer-reviewed scientific papers on all of this are so legion that I won't attempt to link them here. Even if we assume that COVID-19 and flu are relatively similar in risk to children that get it (it's impact is already greater [1], and is already a top-10 killer of children [2]), the fact is that CV-19 has an R0 of 5-9, vs Flu at around 1.2, so being much more contagious, it will affect many more kids, and otherwise unlikely events will become common. Ignoring the risk is foolish. Schools are already known to be a large vector for airborne diseases, and the CDC advocates all students and teachers who can to get flu vaccines for this reason. As noted above, I watched as report after report from Israel, BG, Quebec and others showed general population cases tracking school openings, vacations, and closings. There is solid evidence that Delta is not only a risk among children, but also to the community at large. Against this, you posit some hypothetical emotional harm to children of wearing masks. This is absurd on its face, but we'll discuss it. About masks in general, there are many other professions that wear them all day, not only physicians whom you glibly dismiss. I've read countless physicaian/nurse/HC accounts mentioning wearing masks all day. I've worn masks or even full respirators all day for some tasks in my composites shop, and also when helping others with drywall or other dusty work. There are many other professions that do so. This is not a problem. Hell, I've worn them skiing all day. There are also multiple cultures who do. You don't think Muslims are a good enough example, consider the Inuit, who wear coverings face coverings for long periods daily almost from birth, barely exposing their eyes. Humans are the most adaptable species on the planet, and children are the most adaptable among us. Your claims of some kind of emotional harm are pure conjecture. Seriously, you dismiss all other evidence yet produce not a scintilla of your own. You claim you aren't trolling, but if not, then this looks an awful lot like a lot of motivated reasoning around supporting an "I don't like it" attitude. Remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The precautionary principle says to FIRST take care of the large, deadly, demonstrable, and present danger. You want to instead put a marginal, possibly emotional, hypothetical, and at-best-distant danger in the front. That is not a recipe for success. [1] https://www.idsociety.org/multimedia/videos/idsa-media-briefing-covid-vaccines--the-delta-variant/ https://www.idsociety.org/multimedia/videos/idsa-media-brief... [2] https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-kids-schools-reopening-cases https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-kids-s...