re: Covid In Georgia - 2021 The Reckoning

I heard 3% from the darkhorse podcast.
They cited 2 international studies with the same results. One was vietnam. I dont recall the other study (UK is in my head, but that really doesnt narrow a scope).

The hypothesis is twofold.
1) the size of the virus.
2) the viral load is supposedly 1000 times stronger in the sinus cavity than the original strains.

The argument about the size of the virus vs the size of water droplets has been around since the original debates on masking. It seems that the virus "sheds" at such a rate that it isnt dependent upon moisture to distribute and spread.
What we know from the original spread was that hospital masking and precautions were not stopping penetration of the virus. I dont have any studies, but even then the amount of "shedding" of the virus was obviously more of an issue. And that is before Delta.

For my money, distancing is the best way to protect ones self. Vaccine second. Being angry at others for their masking practices is nothing more than projecting anger at the situation and how fruitless our attempts to control one of evolutions wonders has been.

I stopped posting on this board in January. I blame this damn virus

It’s all just insane to me. I agree with your takes but this isn’t news. I’m just very ready for football season to get here and we can all agree that Kneehigh is overreacting to our team’s first half performance in a game against a no name team.

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If my aunt had a dick she'd be my uncle. I guess nowadays she could just say she's my uncle and I'd have to call him uncle but you get my point. You can't base measures on 100% compliance. If *everyone* stayed home when they're sick...if *everyone* washed their hands...if *everyone* got vaccinated...everyone won't and it's their right not to.

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Do I just need to start handing out badges... this is a false equivalence.

It actually *is* enforceable. We know this because kids have been sent home for years for all sorts of dumb shite that schools elected to enforce. In this case, some schools are choosing not to make that a policy, but mask usage is quite simple to enforce. And yes, 100% compliance might be a challenge, particularly with younger kids who might take the mask off/put it back on... but again... some mitigation is better than no mitigation.

"It's their right not to" is again, a poorly constructed perspective. It's people's right to wear what they want to wear to school, though school policies are enacted to require uniforms, or prevent what they consider indecent/offensive attire.

My argument is simply that Cobb can and should be doing better... if you aren't going to require the bare minimum which you can ask of students, ie. masks... then alternative bigger asks should be on the table... ie. allowing children to flex from in-person to virtual based on the current state of cases. If they offered that ability, it also would encourage people who might exhibit symptoms to actually stay home until that's not the case, because they aren't missing out on classwork. Is it going to stop everyone? Of course not... but this is the entire problem with rig's argument... It's not an All or Nothing proposition. Reducing spread is possible, without massive changes required.

At the end of the day, despite my position in this thread, I'm significantly less worried about this than my wife. It's mostly frustrating that people in charge refuse to have transparent conversations about what is going into their decision making process. If they came out with a plausible explanation as to why a mask policy doesn't make sense, and a breakdown on the costs required to address some of the other parental requests, I think a lot more people would let it drop. But that's not what is happening. You have a 4 party majority that refuses to discuss the topic and has dismissed any and all attempts by the minority 3 to bring it up and/or at least allow individual schools or even teachers to set their own policy.

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Kids are going to get sick. They're kids. I've seen a kid pick his infant brother's nose and eat the booger. No mask is fixing that. Masks do something but they don't help enough to keep a classroom full of kids from getting sick.

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I'll 100% agree that kids do stupid and disgusting shite. If your kid is going to school and picking a classmate's nose and eating their boogers in the current health climate, that's a parental problem, not a kid doing stupid shite problem. I get it that kids either aren't going to wash their hands all the time or if they do, they probably do a shite job at it... Again, it's about reducing spread, not erasing it.

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The same "mountains of physicians and medical organizations supporting mask usage" today thought wearing the same mask from one room to the next was a hazard for infection in 2019. You don't find that the least bit strange?

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I believe you've mentioned your healthcare background in the past, but are you seriously arguing that improved knowledge or changing guidance based on changing data is supposed to be strange? That's literally one of the foundational elements of scientific investigation. In 4 months, even if they say "you know what, we were wrong... masks do frick all", again... what harm did it do? Mild inconvenience. Right now, they all say that it reduces transmission and/or reduces load or something to that effect with very few dissenting voices.

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Kids, especially very young kids, need to see how people's mouths move when they speak. They need to see faces. They need to learn to read emotions on faces. There's more to school and society than just trying not to get sick. Young people are awkward enough as it is because they spend so much time on their devices and we're making it worse.

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This is a reasonable point of discrepancy, but I'd argue that wearing a mask at school doesn't prevent them from reading facial expression from family members. There are so many opportunities to develop this skillset that I just don't buy that another 6-12 months of mask usage until vaccines are available to all school age children is a huge ask. But if there are studies to the contrary, I'd be open to reading about them. I'm having to make arguments with my wife all the time about keeping her in-person rather than looking for some alternative virtual only option. This child is about as extroverted of a social butterfly as they come... Bottling her up for another year in my mind would be cruel and unusual punishment.

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I've cared for the sickest covid patients in our facility for the last 14 months. I've seen people recover and I've seen them die. Up close and very personal. I'm well aware of how awful this can
be. I'm not someone that's taking this lightly. I'm not trying to belittle your point of view at all - I just disagree.

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I appreciate the risks that you and so many other healthcare workers have undertaken to do so. As I messaged to sonny earlier. I'm ok with agreeing to disagree on the effectiveness of masks... I just genuinely am asking... if I wave a magic wand and we're a year further down the road: If I'm right, what was the cost/benefit of the no mask policy? And if I'm wrong, what was the cost/benefit?

We can't ask people to mask for eternity... it's asinine. We're social creatures. But getting to a point where we have some level of functional protection for as many people that want it as possible would be a nice target line for making it an optional thing again.

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I have a son in grade school and one in daycare. I think my older son will wear a mask in school because he wants to and I encourage him to if that's what he thinks he should do. It's not hurting him. My younger son refuses to wear one at daycare because none of the other kids do and at that point...what's the point?

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If it's a requirement, they all have them on. I think my daughter said that on the first day of school about half her class had on a mask which I was reasonably happy with. Last week, at least her class was up to all but 3 or so students wearing masks (though several of the kids who usually don't wear masks were home due to Covid exposure notifications it sounds like).

On the upside, her Covid test came back negative and she's on the mend and excited that she lost her first tooth... Thankfully had some Sacagawea Dollar coins so she'll get one for the first tooth and will be on the lookout for other weird currency for future deposits to the tooth fairy (3 other loose teeth).

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If it's a requirement, they all have them on

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They're 3 years old. It's like herding cats. No chance they all have them on.

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We can't ask people to mask for eternity

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But this is here now. This is an annual thing; it's never going away. Every respiratory virus season, this will be here. It will mutate, probably, into something less deadly but more transmissible. So how long do we mask?

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It actually *is* enforceable.

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All of those things are enforceable in the same way a mask for kids is. They don't go to that school if they don't comply. Whether you're willing to enforce any of if is a different matter.

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At the end of the day, despite my position in this thread, I'm significantly less worried about this than my wife.

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Were you the one washing fruit with soap last year?

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are you seriously arguing that improved knowledge

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No. I'm saying wearing masks from room to room is STILL an infection control hazard. That was an evidence based practice. Hospitals just seem to have forgotten there are things other than covid. We should STILL be changing our masks between patients.

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I just genuinely am asking... if I wave a magic wand and we're a year further down the road: If I'm right, what was the cost/benefit of the no mask policy? And if I'm wrong, what was the cost/benefit?

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I think it's a wash. We're all going to get it. Most of us multiple times.

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wearing a mask at school doesn't prevent them from reading facial expression from family members.

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This is true but they can't learn everything from family members. That's the whole point of school. I'm 100% my face doesn't look like Jefferson's face and I'm pretty positive his expressions are different.

We're not going to agree so I'm going to stop arguing. I'm not even sure why I started because these always go the same way. At this point people believe what they're going to believe. The providers I work with argue about this same thing daily because even they can't come to a consensus.

I'm glad your wife's test was negative. I hope you and yours stay healthy.

Flying blind on Delta

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I know I'll be in the minority on this board all day every day on this subject, I'm ok with it.

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I'm with you. The issue with this is that it's an all-or-none issue for most folks. If they don't block 100% of viral transmission, they don't work. That's exceptionally disingenuous. If they are even a mere 5% effective, that's something. The only action we take that is 100% ineffective is inaction. Period. We can argue everything in between, but a reduction is a reduction and you're right, the vast majority of the medical community says do it.

And by the way, (as I'm sure you're aware) the viral particles don't just free-float in the air. The argument that they just pass right through a mask of any type unscathed is simply incorrect. They travel by aerosols and those are generally much larger than the viral particles themselves. But let's not be concerned with reality.

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If they don't block 100% of viral transmission, they don't work. That's exceptionally disingenuous. If they are even a mere 5% effective, that's something. The only action we take that is 100% ineffective is inaction. Period. We can argue everything in between, but a reduction is a reduction and you're right, the vast majority of the medical community says do it.

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If the experts would be truthful about the level of protection they provide, that would be a start.

For the last year and a half, a whole lot of people have been thinking that wearing a mask is what keeps everyone from dropping dead in the streets, and if someone doesn't wear a mask, they are the equivalent of a mass murderer, not worthy of enjoying freedom or getting healthcare if needed. That's not exactly the same thing as "masks can be helpful".

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If the experts would be truthful about the level of protection they provide, that would be a start.

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Would it, though? Those who aren't wearing now probably still wouldn't because of the politicization of the whole thing.

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For the last year and a half, a whole lot of people have been thinking that wearing a mask is what keeps everyone from dropping dead in the streets, and if someone doesn't wear a mask, they are the equivalent of a mass murderer, not worthy of enjoying freedom or getting healthcare if needed. That's not exactly the same thing as "masks can be helpful".

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I mean, I've seen this approach on both sides. And again, it's been "they are our saviors," as you say, or "they are useless and symbols of communism." There's been little room for any rational discussion in between, unfortunately.

I get what you're saying, but I don't think it would have changed anyone's mind.

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no way is it anything close to 37% effective. It's closer to 0.0% effective.

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especially for the people who wear the same one for weeks on end. provides zero benefit

There are clearly a large amount of people wearing the same mask that would be considered dirty. What affect does that have on their health?