5 ms·

I am sorry, this story just does not add up. BTW here is the same story with more details: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/28/delta-variant-unvac

I am sorry, this story just does not add up. BTW here is the same story with more details: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/28/delta-variant-unvaccinated-children-elementary-schools/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/28/delta-varia... We have a teacher that is positive, infectious and is spending hours in a classroom even after exhibiting symptoms. Now that needs to be avoided in the future. Fix that first and foremost. Where is the evidence that her wearing a mask would have changed the outcomes? The students did wear a mask after all. It either works or it does not. Bringing masking into the picture has the opposite effect - it creates the illusion that it would be fine to show up with symptoms if you have a mask. Then simulations are bullshit ... you can simulate to generate any and every outcome you want - it all depends on the parameters. Sorry, does not take much to see that, just simply look at everyday observations. There are plenty of schools with no masking requirement - yet NONE have exhibited anything close to the 91% infection rates (within 30 days!) that the CDC simulations predict.

warning26 5y ago
> It either works or it does not. You do realize that, in medicine, things "work" on a spectrum right? A pill might be x% effective at alleviating certain systems in particular cases, etc. Why shouldn't the case be the same for masks? There are far more variables than "bool masked = true". What kind of mask material was worn? Was it a well-fitted mask? Was it a particulate filter mask or a simple one? Was the infected person masked? The non-infected? Etc.
- glofish 5y ago
  the point I was making is that the story, at least in my reading, is being presented primarily as scientific evidence on the effectiveness of masks in school. Especially the WaPo article. If 50% of students in a classroom get infected after 2 days in school while wearing masks then, IMHO, masks can't be all that effective in the first place. the whole article tries to suggest that the infections happened during that period she removed the mask ... there is no evidence for that whatsoever
  - newbamboo 5y ago
    You’re right to question that. From my understanding, she was masked except for the story reading. Teachers need to use facial expression to convey what they’re reading, not just for those with disabilities, hearing problems, etc… but for all children. People who take this as a fable about mask wearing know nothing about pedagogy. It’s a cautionary tale about the need for testing. It also serves to contextualize the precarious trade offs facing our educators and educational system. There are no easy answers; though more testing and vaccinations for the more at risk are obvious takeaways.
  - warning26 5y ago
    > If 50% of students in a classroom get infected after 2 days in school while wearing masks then, IMHO, masks can't be all that effective in the first place. I believe the primary assertion has always been that making protects others more than it protects oneself. So I wouldn't consider this a contradiction of that. That said, it's entirely possible that the 50% of students who didn't get infected were wearing superior masks. Or, perhaps 80% of the students would have been infected if no one had worn masks. In short, you can't really draw a meaningful "see masks don't work" conclusion from this.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    yes, you are correct to note there is a difference between the confidence of the narrative and what science acftually says you can strongly conclude in a situation like this. This is common in journalism and it's our job to call out statements like these when they are not truly supportable by evidence.
Ceiling 5y ago
>Where is the evidence that her wearing a mask would have changed the outcomes? There is multiple studies that show masks are effective at _slowing down_ the spread. >It either works or it does not. Huh? This is like saying, "chemotherapy works or it does not." >Sorry, does not take much to see that, just simply look at everyday observations. Yep. I'm looking. There's mass deaths a day. Funny the activity is in the anti-mask states, huh? >yet NONE have exhibited anything close to the 91% infection rates The CDC said 91% of kids live in high risk places... it has nothing to do with the infection rate. You need to _read_ sources and not just emotionally react. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/report-91percent-of-students-live-in-cdc-red-zones-for-school-reopening/ https://www.cbsnews.com/video/report-91percent-of-students-l...
- glofish 5y ago
  > There's mass deaths a day. Funny the activity is in the anti-mask states, huh? I suggest you look at the actual data - no such correlation exists. The majority of US states have similar death rates per population at around 2K deaths per 1M citizens. (with a spread of around +/- 15%) You can find examples for each, Death rates correlate much better to wealth and way of living than local policies.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The majority of US states have similar death rates per population at around 2K deaths per 1M citizens. (with a spread of around +/- 15%) The range is actually about 40 to 300 per 100K (or 400 to 3000 per million), but what the upthread claim seems to be about is the recent death rate, not the total death rate. No one I can find reports that per capita, but I suspect it has even more variation (California is about middle of the road for total deaths, but was an early leader with its population centers hit really hard at the beginning of the pandemic, while a number of the places in the South that weren't hit hard initially have gotten up near the top in total deaths per capita.)
- jessecurry 5y ago
  There are lots of models, but the only study I’m aware of showed that blue surgical masks had ≈10% efficacy when worn correctly, with cloth masks and gaiters less effective. Additional ventilation seemed to have better efficacy.
diogenescynic 5y ago
Masks help infected people not spread COVID, they are less useful at preventing uninfected from catching COVID. Everyone has to wear them though because no one knows who has COVID at any given time.
- glofish 5y ago
  alas, evidence to that efficacy of masks is severely lacking tell me, why is that 16 months into this pandemic there are no definitive studies to measure the actual effect of masks, you know one with a control and masked people? Yet it is the easiest thing to measure ever. We can test an actual life saving vaccine (that also carries huge risks while under development) with 40K volunteers but the mask seems to elude the scrutiny. The CDC should just do the fracking study and put this issue to rest already. Strangely they are not.
  - incrudible 5y ago
    We just assume that masks work and therefore leaving a control group unmasked is unethical. It is the same with the vaccines. The trials have technically not finished yet, but the control groups have long been vaccinated. The real control groups now are the much maligned vaccine hesitant.
  - C19is20 5y ago
    By "fracking", did you mean "fucking", or did I miss something?
  - n8henrie 5y ago
    I made this case a couple of weeks ago, and in response to the conversation I set out to do another literature review (which I hadn't done in about a year, and at that time data were sorely lacking). I was happily surprised to find that several reasonably applicable studies have been published in the meantime, and seem to universally support a statistically significant reduction in infections. If you're basing your statements on literature review from ~9 months ago, I suggest that you look again, the top results on PubMed were extremely easy to find and virtually all had free public access. Of the top of my head, relative risk reduction with vs without masks varied between 30-70% depending on the study, with absolute risk reduction more like 10% (with the absolute risk being fairly low to begin with).
newbamboo 5y ago
The problem is lack of testing and slowness testing. The US I hate to say it, has been shameful in this regard compared to other developed nations. Teachers need to get tested and get results, quickly. That’s just not happening in the US. This case is the inevitable result of that lack of testing. Have you tried to get tested? I have and had to give up and go buy a test at CVS. It cost me 40 dollars and I was lucky they had tests on the shelf and I had time in my busy schedule to do it. Teachers probably have less time, less money, and may think they don’t need a test if they’ve been vaccinated.
- MandieD 5y ago
  $40?! Self-tests were 5 EUR each when they first hit the stores in Germany a few months ago, and are now about 1 EUR each. The vaccination situation until July was frustrating, though.
doliveira 5y ago
> It either works or it doesn't Oh yeah, because percentages, probabilities, risk mitigation, etc aren't a thing. Everything is either 0% or 100% But anyway, why aren't teachers at least using N95 masks?

warning26 5y ago

> It either works or it does not. You do realize that, in medicine, things "work" on a spectrum right? A pill might be x% effective at alleviating certain systems in particular cases, etc. Why shouldn't the case be the same for masks? There are far more variables than "bool masked = true". What kind of mask material was worn? Was it a well-fitted mask? Was it a particulate filter mask or a simple one? Was the infected person masked? The non-infected? Etc.

glofish 5y ago
the point I was making is that the story, at least in my reading, is being presented primarily as scientific evidence on the effectiveness of masks in school. Especially the WaPo article. If 50% of students in a classroom get infected after 2 days in school while wearing masks then, IMHO, masks can't be all that effective in the first place. the whole article tries to suggest that the infections happened during that period she removed the mask ... there is no evidence for that whatsoever
- newbamboo 5y ago
  You’re right to question that. From my understanding, she was masked except for the story reading. Teachers need to use facial expression to convey what they’re reading, not just for those with disabilities, hearing problems, etc… but for all children. People who take this as a fable about mask wearing know nothing about pedagogy. It’s a cautionary tale about the need for testing. It also serves to contextualize the precarious trade offs facing our educators and educational system. There are no easy answers; though more testing and vaccinations for the more at risk are obvious takeaways.
- warning26 5y ago
  > If 50% of students in a classroom get infected after 2 days in school while wearing masks then, IMHO, masks can't be all that effective in the first place. I believe the primary assertion has always been that making protects others more than it protects oneself. So I wouldn't consider this a contradiction of that. That said, it's entirely possible that the 50% of students who didn't get infected were wearing superior masks. Or, perhaps 80% of the students would have been infected if no one had worn masks. In short, you can't really draw a meaningful "see masks don't work" conclusion from this.
- dekhn 5y ago
  yes, you are correct to note there is a difference between the confidence of the narrative and what science acftually says you can strongly conclude in a situation like this. This is common in journalism and it's our job to call out statements like these when they are not truly supportable by evidence.

Ceiling 5y ago

>Where is the evidence that her wearing a mask would have changed the outcomes? There is multiple studies that show masks are effective at _slowing down_ the spread. >It either works or it does not. Huh? This is like saying, "chemotherapy works or it does not." >Sorry, does not take much to see that, just simply look at everyday observations. Yep. I'm looking. There's mass deaths a day. Funny the activity is in the anti-mask states, huh? >yet NONE have exhibited anything close to the 91% infection rates The CDC said 91% of kids live in high risk places... it has nothing to do with the infection rate. You need to _read_ sources and not just emotionally react. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/report-91percent-of-students-live-in-cdc-red-zones-for-school-reopening/ https://www.cbsnews.com/video/report-91percent-of-students-l...

glofish 5y ago
> There's mass deaths a day. Funny the activity is in the anti-mask states, huh? I suggest you look at the actual data - no such correlation exists. The majority of US states have similar death rates per population at around 2K deaths per 1M citizens. (with a spread of around +/- 15%) You can find examples for each, Death rates correlate much better to wealth and way of living than local policies.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The majority of US states have similar death rates per population at around 2K deaths per 1M citizens. (with a spread of around +/- 15%) The range is actually about 40 to 300 per 100K (or 400 to 3000 per million), but what the upthread claim seems to be about is the recent death rate, not the total death rate. No one I can find reports that per capita, but I suspect it has even more variation (California is about middle of the road for total deaths, but was an early leader with its population centers hit really hard at the beginning of the pandemic, while a number of the places in the South that weren't hit hard initially have gotten up near the top in total deaths per capita.)
jessecurry 5y ago
There are lots of models, but the only study I’m aware of showed that blue surgical masks had ≈10% efficacy when worn correctly, with cloth masks and gaiters less effective. Additional ventilation seemed to have better efficacy.

diogenescynic 5y ago

Masks help infected people not spread COVID, they are less useful at preventing uninfected from catching COVID. Everyone has to wear them though because no one knows who has COVID at any given time.

glofish 5y ago
alas, evidence to that efficacy of masks is severely lacking tell me, why is that 16 months into this pandemic there are no definitive studies to measure the actual effect of masks, you know one with a control and masked people? Yet it is the easiest thing to measure ever. We can test an actual life saving vaccine (that also carries huge risks while under development) with 40K volunteers but the mask seems to elude the scrutiny. The CDC should just do the fracking study and put this issue to rest already. Strangely they are not.
- incrudible 5y ago
  We just assume that masks work and therefore leaving a control group unmasked is unethical. It is the same with the vaccines. The trials have technically not finished yet, but the control groups have long been vaccinated. The real control groups now are the much maligned vaccine hesitant.
- C19is20 5y ago
  By "fracking", did you mean "fucking", or did I miss something?
- n8henrie 5y ago
  I made this case a couple of weeks ago, and in response to the conversation I set out to do another literature review (which I hadn't done in about a year, and at that time data were sorely lacking). I was happily surprised to find that several reasonably applicable studies have been published in the meantime, and seem to universally support a statistically significant reduction in infections. If you're basing your statements on literature review from ~9 months ago, I suggest that you look again, the top results on PubMed were extremely easy to find and virtually all had free public access. Of the top of my head, relative risk reduction with vs without masks varied between 30-70% depending on the study, with absolute risk reduction more like 10% (with the absolute risk being fairly low to begin with).

newbamboo 5y ago

The problem is lack of testing and slowness testing. The US I hate to say it, has been shameful in this regard compared to other developed nations. Teachers need to get tested and get results, quickly. That’s just not happening in the US. This case is the inevitable result of that lack of testing. Have you tried to get tested? I have and had to give up and go buy a test at CVS. It cost me 40 dollars and I was lucky they had tests on the shelf and I had time in my busy schedule to do it. Teachers probably have less time, less money, and may think they don’t need a test if they’ve been vaccinated.

MandieD 5y ago
$40?! Self-tests were 5 EUR each when they first hit the stores in Germany a few months ago, and are now about 1 EUR each. The vaccination situation until July was frustrating, though.

doliveira 5y ago

> It either works or it doesn't Oh yeah, because percentages, probabilities, risk mitigation, etc aren't a thing. Everything is either 0% or 100% But anyway, why aren't teachers at least using N95 masks?