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Or…grandpa can get vaccinated. I'd be more than happy to test and vaccinate in schools. In particular vaccinate. But having kids wear masks…which they don't do

Or…grandpa can get vaccinated. I'd be more than happy to test and vaccinate in schools. In particular vaccinate. But having kids wear masks…which they don't do well, because they're kids…not like adults do it well either…is a fig leaf. It's not going to work. And you can see that from the massive infection rates in schools that have masks.

dsl 5y ago
Of course all of our problems go away when you convince the remaining 40% of the population to get vaccinated. I'm actually in favor of doing away with masks and social distancing. Just create a nationwide policy that the unvaccinated will not be admitted or treated for COVID and we can all return to our daily lives.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sleepybrett 5y ago
  Convincing that 40% to get vaccinated while members of our elected government preach to that particular choir about how things that are partially or mostly effective (masking, vaccines, etc) are NOT effective simply because they are not 100% effective is a losing battle. Watch the widely circulated video of the Florida's nomination hearing for their new Surgeon General, where a democrat asks the nominee if he, yes or no, believes the vaccines to be effective. It was asked five times, his answers were nothing but stuttering, rambling, dissembling, meandering madness ('i mean what does effective actually mean' level bullshit). The republicans passed him out of committee once the democrats walked out in frustration. We have a party that is in full denial mode because that's what their anti-vax constituents want to hear. The only upside might be that their vote share goes down because their constituents die in higher numbers.
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    The denial is so palpable. I know a couple in their early sixties who refused to get vaccinated because "COVID is way overblown". They were both regular weight and normal health. The wife contracted COVID and died in the hospital. Later, when asked if he was going to get vaccinated, he said no, because "COVID is no worse than a cold." He apparently believes that even though his wife went into the hospital for COVID, she actually died from pneumonia, and not COVID. I guess no doctor explained to him that pneumonia is simply an infection that has spread to the lungs. You can't help people like this.
    - jlawson 5y ago
      Consider what he would have to accept if he faced the truth: That his incorrect beliefs directly caused his wife's death. Not surprising he'd perform basically any level of mental gymnastics to avoid that. Ego-protective delusions are extremely common and most are motivated by far less than this.
- fullstackchris 5y ago
  I'd argue it in a more adult way than just punishing those who are different from you. Just do away with the masking and social distancing regardless. As soon as we were throwing out the first doses of expired vaccine, the choice by every american to get vaccinated or not had been made. If the hospitals are overrun, it will be the unvaccinated, so they'll be punished anyway - no need to legally do it. Also you need to update your Sam Harris stats, its not 40% unvaccinated anymore like some outlets continue to harp on, check CDC numbers, its closer to only 20% of the population remaining.
  - rthille 5y ago
    https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-onedose-pop-5yr https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-... I guess it depends on what you mean by vaccinated: 75.1% of total us population has had at least on dose (79.8% of eligible (>= 5 yr) Fully vaccinated drops to 63.6/67.6% And Boosted is at only 41% of the fully vaccinated, 86.5M.
  - rrose 5y ago
    hospitals being overrun doesn't just affect the unvaccinated, it affects anybody who needs medical attention. just allowing the hospitals to get overrun is not a reasonable option
  - srj 5y ago
    Is saying "Sam Harris stats" some kind of dig?
- RubberMullet 5y ago
  All of our problems go away?! Which demographic do you think this policy will affect the most, for example, in California[0]? [0]: https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/#ethnicity-gender-age https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/#ethnicity-gender-age
- rcurry 5y ago
  If only modern medicine was reserved for the Master Race, it would be so much simpler, and cost effective! But before you seek medical treatment we’ll just need you to fill out this questionnaire: 1. Have you ever had an alcoholic beverage? 2. Do you have a BMI greater than 18.5? 3. Have you ever eaten at The Cheesecake Factory? 4. Do you ride, run, or swim less than 40 miles per day? Please understand that your answers may disqualify you from eligibility for healthcare. Thank you, Acme Excellence Health Partners.
  - tjr225 5y ago
    None of those things have forced us to all drastically alter our lives in the forms of economic and social lockdowns like covid has. It is a pretty silly thing to compare.
    - rcurry 5y ago
      Covid is old and busted. Now all you have is OMG Omicron that’s just basically an annoying flu, you go ahead and lose your mind over it - it’s a free country. I’m still freaking out about dioxin so I don’t have time for this shit.
      - projct 5y ago
        Covid killed 3895 people yesterday, with a 7 day average of almost a 9/11 of people every single day this past week.
    - scarygliders 5y ago
      Covid didn't make economic and social lockdowns. Governments did.
      - rcurry 5y ago
        Shush, you’re going to ruin everything.
    - landemva 5y ago
- throwawaythekey 5y ago
  Please refer to countries like Australia/Israel who are still experiencing massive case loads with a ~95% vaccination rate. It doesn't make it go away. For example please see https://twitter.com/orwell2022/status/1486330027549544452 https://twitter.com/orwell2022/status/1486330027549544452 Sure, you can deny some people medical treatment if you want to reduce the load on the hospital by a bit but it does not go away!
  - BeefWellington 5y ago
    > Please refer to countries like Australia/Israel who are still experiencing massive case loads with a ~95% vaccination rate. It doesn't make it go away. For example please see I think people underestimate how big a number 5% of a population of most countries -- even small ones -- actually is, especially when compared against available health care resources.
    - throwawaythekey 5y ago
      About 1/3 of the covid cases in the ICU where I live [1]. No idea how that stacks up compared to total ICU capacity (I think <10% but am not sure on this). https://twitter.com/VicGovDH/status/1486225759874486273 https://twitter.com/VicGovDH/status/1486225759874486273
amerkhalid 5y ago
Another thing I wonder about is what are the affects of wearing masks at young age and not getting usual amount of exposure to viruses and other germs. I remember reading here and elsewhere that early childhood exposure to germs builds a robust immune system. While my kid doesn’t wear mask in his class but his school is following very strict cleaning procedures. So he hasn’t gotten sick as much before pandemic. Maybe that is good, definitely easier on us. Maybe we will always have higher level of hygiene now. Or maybe in future there will be a lot of young adults with underdeveloped immune system.
- watersb 5y ago
  Good question. I believe that it's common for kids to wear masks during flu season in some countries. They probably have some relevant data. I think there's a belief that strict adherence to vaccination and masks would get us to a place where we won't need masks all the time, and kids can resume their usual immune-system adventures. That might be less realistic than we might want. I don't know.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  Having young kids myself, I can say pretty confidently that kids are going to expose themselves to quite a lot of germs no matter what precautions we take, short of putting them in solitary confinement in clean rooms. So I think it's possible that precautions reduce viral and bacterial exposure, but since they don't completely stop it, immune systems may still get enough exposure to build immunity to things while still not getting enough exposure to actually make them sick.
  - esyir 5y ago
    This seems to run counter to the current hygiene hypothesis, which is the current mainstream scientific opinion on one aspect of allergy development. Children in developed countries are decreasingly exposed to various microorganisms, and this is thought to result in increased rates of allergic disorders.
sokoloff 5y ago
Is there a massive infection rate? My kid’s elementary school sends an email with the count of positive test results in the school each week. It seems like it’s consistently under 1% per week. (Typically 1-4 people testing positive in a city K-5 school, students and staff being tested.)
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  Our school has seemed to do OK keeping it from spreading between kids. But they also do weekly testing. And did surveillance testing at the end of winter break, which kept about 15% of the school's students at home for the first week back because they had covid. This statistic was also consistent with LA Unified surveillance testing after winter break - about 15%. Before winter break, some parents of 2nd graders had an indoor, maskless, holiday party. Apparently all the kids got covid. Then gave it to the teachers - all 4 2nd grade teachers were out of school with covid the week before winter break. But from what our school's testing showed, it didn't spread beyond that. I do know of a couple families who did seem to get covid from their school though.
  - hcurtiss 5y ago
    Our elementary school in Oregon has required masks. And I can't think of a kid who hasn't got it, including our own. It's run rampant through Oregon schools. By my assessment, masks do very, very little to stop the spread.
    - bcrosby95 5y ago
      That's interesting. I'm in California, and I know a lot of kids that have caught it, but only 2 that can trace it back to the classroom. We have caught about 3 things over the past ~year, but none of it covid (as far as tests showed) and all of them had obvious non-classroom links. Two of them were sick friends. And the third was probably when our 3 year old licked a trashcan at the zoo.

dsl 5y ago

Of course all of our problems go away when you convince the remaining 40% of the population to get vaccinated. I'm actually in favor of doing away with masks and social distancing. Just create a nationwide policy that the unvaccinated will not be admitted or treated for COVID and we can all return to our daily lives.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sleepybrett 5y ago
Convincing that 40% to get vaccinated while members of our elected government preach to that particular choir about how things that are partially or mostly effective (masking, vaccines, etc) are NOT effective simply because they are not 100% effective is a losing battle. Watch the widely circulated video of the Florida's nomination hearing for their new Surgeon General, where a democrat asks the nominee if he, yes or no, believes the vaccines to be effective. It was asked five times, his answers were nothing but stuttering, rambling, dissembling, meandering madness ('i mean what does effective actually mean' level bullshit). The republicans passed him out of committee once the democrats walked out in frustration. We have a party that is in full denial mode because that's what their anti-vax constituents want to hear. The only upside might be that their vote share goes down because their constituents die in higher numbers.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  The denial is so palpable. I know a couple in their early sixties who refused to get vaccinated because "COVID is way overblown". They were both regular weight and normal health. The wife contracted COVID and died in the hospital. Later, when asked if he was going to get vaccinated, he said no, because "COVID is no worse than a cold." He apparently believes that even though his wife went into the hospital for COVID, she actually died from pneumonia, and not COVID. I guess no doctor explained to him that pneumonia is simply an infection that has spread to the lungs. You can't help people like this.
  - jlawson 5y ago
    Consider what he would have to accept if he faced the truth: That his incorrect beliefs directly caused his wife's death. Not surprising he'd perform basically any level of mental gymnastics to avoid that. Ego-protective delusions are extremely common and most are motivated by far less than this.
fullstackchris 5y ago
I'd argue it in a more adult way than just punishing those who are different from you. Just do away with the masking and social distancing regardless. As soon as we were throwing out the first doses of expired vaccine, the choice by every american to get vaccinated or not had been made. If the hospitals are overrun, it will be the unvaccinated, so they'll be punished anyway - no need to legally do it. Also you need to update your Sam Harris stats, its not 40% unvaccinated anymore like some outlets continue to harp on, check CDC numbers, its closer to only 20% of the population remaining.
- rthille 5y ago
  https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-people-onedose-pop-5yr https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-... I guess it depends on what you mean by vaccinated: 75.1% of total us population has had at least on dose (79.8% of eligible (>= 5 yr) Fully vaccinated drops to 63.6/67.6% And Boosted is at only 41% of the fully vaccinated, 86.5M.
- rrose 5y ago
  hospitals being overrun doesn't just affect the unvaccinated, it affects anybody who needs medical attention. just allowing the hospitals to get overrun is not a reasonable option
- srj 5y ago
  Is saying "Sam Harris stats" some kind of dig?
RubberMullet 5y ago
All of our problems go away?! Which demographic do you think this policy will affect the most, for example, in California[0]? [0]: https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/#ethnicity-gender-age https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/#ethnicity-gender-age
rcurry 5y ago
If only modern medicine was reserved for the Master Race, it would be so much simpler, and cost effective! But before you seek medical treatment we’ll just need you to fill out this questionnaire: 1. Have you ever had an alcoholic beverage? 2. Do you have a BMI greater than 18.5? 3. Have you ever eaten at The Cheesecake Factory? 4. Do you ride, run, or swim less than 40 miles per day? Please understand that your answers may disqualify you from eligibility for healthcare. Thank you, Acme Excellence Health Partners.
- tjr225 5y ago
  None of those things have forced us to all drastically alter our lives in the forms of economic and social lockdowns like covid has. It is a pretty silly thing to compare.
  - rcurry 5y ago
    Covid is old and busted. Now all you have is OMG Omicron that’s just basically an annoying flu, you go ahead and lose your mind over it - it’s a free country. I’m still freaking out about dioxin so I don’t have time for this shit.
    - projct 5y ago
      Covid killed 3895 people yesterday, with a 7 day average of almost a 9/11 of people every single day this past week.
  - scarygliders 5y ago
    Covid didn't make economic and social lockdowns. Governments did.
    - rcurry 5y ago
      Shush, you’re going to ruin everything.
  - landemva 5y ago
throwawaythekey 5y ago
Please refer to countries like Australia/Israel who are still experiencing massive case loads with a ~95% vaccination rate. It doesn't make it go away. For example please see https://twitter.com/orwell2022/status/1486330027549544452 https://twitter.com/orwell2022/status/1486330027549544452 Sure, you can deny some people medical treatment if you want to reduce the load on the hospital by a bit but it does not go away!
- BeefWellington 5y ago
  > Please refer to countries like Australia/Israel who are still experiencing massive case loads with a ~95% vaccination rate. It doesn't make it go away. For example please see I think people underestimate how big a number 5% of a population of most countries -- even small ones -- actually is, especially when compared against available health care resources.
  - throwawaythekey 5y ago
    About 1/3 of the covid cases in the ICU where I live [1]. No idea how that stacks up compared to total ICU capacity (I think <10% but am not sure on this). https://twitter.com/VicGovDH/status/1486225759874486273 https://twitter.com/VicGovDH/status/1486225759874486273

amerkhalid 5y ago

Another thing I wonder about is what are the affects of wearing masks at young age and not getting usual amount of exposure to viruses and other germs. I remember reading here and elsewhere that early childhood exposure to germs builds a robust immune system. While my kid doesn’t wear mask in his class but his school is following very strict cleaning procedures. So he hasn’t gotten sick as much before pandemic. Maybe that is good, definitely easier on us. Maybe we will always have higher level of hygiene now. Or maybe in future there will be a lot of young adults with underdeveloped immune system.

watersb 5y ago
Good question. I believe that it's common for kids to wear masks during flu season in some countries. They probably have some relevant data. I think there's a belief that strict adherence to vaccination and masks would get us to a place where we won't need masks all the time, and kids can resume their usual immune-system adventures. That might be less realistic than we might want. I don't know.
jjeaff 5y ago
Having young kids myself, I can say pretty confidently that kids are going to expose themselves to quite a lot of germs no matter what precautions we take, short of putting them in solitary confinement in clean rooms. So I think it's possible that precautions reduce viral and bacterial exposure, but since they don't completely stop it, immune systems may still get enough exposure to build immunity to things while still not getting enough exposure to actually make them sick.
- esyir 5y ago
  This seems to run counter to the current hygiene hypothesis, which is the current mainstream scientific opinion on one aspect of allergy development. Children in developed countries are decreasingly exposed to various microorganisms, and this is thought to result in increased rates of allergic disorders.

sokoloff 5y ago

Is there a massive infection rate? My kid’s elementary school sends an email with the count of positive test results in the school each week. It seems like it’s consistently under 1% per week. (Typically 1-4 people testing positive in a city K-5 school, students and staff being tested.)

bcrosby95 5y ago
Our school has seemed to do OK keeping it from spreading between kids. But they also do weekly testing. And did surveillance testing at the end of winter break, which kept about 15% of the school's students at home for the first week back because they had covid. This statistic was also consistent with LA Unified surveillance testing after winter break - about 15%. Before winter break, some parents of 2nd graders had an indoor, maskless, holiday party. Apparently all the kids got covid. Then gave it to the teachers - all 4 2nd grade teachers were out of school with covid the week before winter break. But from what our school's testing showed, it didn't spread beyond that. I do know of a couple families who did seem to get covid from their school though.
- hcurtiss 5y ago
  Our elementary school in Oregon has required masks. And I can't think of a kid who hasn't got it, including our own. It's run rampant through Oregon schools. By my assessment, masks do very, very little to stop the spread.
  - bcrosby95 5y ago
    That's interesting. I'm in California, and I know a lot of kids that have caught it, but only 2 that can trace it back to the classroom. We have caught about 3 things over the past ~year, but none of it covid (as far as tests showed) and all of them had obvious non-classroom links. Two of them were sick friends. And the third was probably when our 3 year old licked a trashcan at the zoo.