For better or worse - San Franciscans are done with masks in schools

[fskimospy]

I hear you. Masks do have some costs, but in the midst of a virus or new strain of a virus of which we aren't sure of it's mortality rate, I think we can cope. And another month(until the cases counts come down) of masks won't hurt. Those decisions were political. Now, I think everything should be done for them to be in school. But we keep nibbling around this virus instead of doing the things we need to to move on from it, which prolongs it.

I think we have a pretty good idea of its mortality rate and for children and the vaccinated it is very low.

If people want to set a date for the elimination of student masking a month from now I would take that as it’s better than nothing but I think people are going to want it to keep going in perpetuity and someone has to put a stop to it. People don’t seem to realize the harms it inflicts on kids and there’s no longer a good reason to do it.

 

[pauldun170]

Wow. I think that's the part people aren't talking about. Kids spreading the virus. When your kid is sick, in that moment most parents aren't thinking about their own welfare.
My brother always made us wear masks around his unvaccinated children, which we were happy to do. But in hindsight I wonder if that protected us more than them.

The kids, at least the vaccinated ones, have been getting off pretty light. The parents (vaccinated) who ended up catching it from the kids....especially the moms have been getting it worse.

 

[pauldun170]

Nearly every one of my wife's peers that have been out of work from covid since January were because of kids bringing it back into the house. Even vaccinated ones.

It's always interesting when everyone figures out who patient zero is....

Gonna quote myself

You can tell which kids have no issues with masks based on the academic performance the student and education level of the household.
Maybe the kids that do have problems with masks are simply lonely since mommy and daddy are staring at their phone all day trying to figure out which rally to attend on social media.

However, that's just my little anecdote talking about our little community in our county.
Just observing the facts on the ground in our little section of NY.

 

[Moonbeam]

Too much bother, too much cost, too much emotional stress, put the old on an ideburg and let them float out to sea. It is only logical and makes perfect sense.

 

[woolfe9998]

Omicron is quite infective. Most of my family has gotten it. Not me or my wife, but our daughter, my sister, her husband, my nephew. They're all triple vaxxed. They were each out for a few days with cold like symptoms. The risk of death or serious illness is extremely low with Omicron, particularly for children and vaxxed adults. Why do we want masks for COVID when we never used them for the seasonal flu? It just doesn't make sense anymore.

 

[Aikouka]

the cost of masking students is not trivial.

There are two sides to this. One side wants kids to wear masks to help stem viral spread, and you're pushing the narrative that masks are bad for kids. The issue that I see in this argument is that we have evidence of masks reducing spread and that children can spread diseases among their peers and family. (Given that children are often joked to be "germ factories", I'm not sure if anyone would deny that.) However, I have not seen you provide a single piece of evidence to back up your position.

 

[fskimospy]

There are two sides to this. One side wants kids to wear masks to help stem viral spread, and you're pushing the narrative that masks are bad for kids. The issue that I see in this argument is that we have evidence of masks reducing spread and that children can spread diseases among their peers and family. (Given that children are often joked to be "germ factories", I'm not sure if anyone would deny that.) However, I have not seen you provide a single piece of evidence to back up your position.

Well from a purely anecdotal perspective just ask anyone you know who is a teacher if mask wearing impedes their pedagogy. I don’t know one who says it doesn’t.

If you want something more empirical here you go:

Masked education? The benefits and burdens of wearing face masks in schools during the current Corona pandemic - PMC

Face masks can prevent the spread of the virus SARS-CoV-2, in particular as this spread can occur from people with no symptoms. However, covering the lower half of the face reduces the ability to communicate, interpret, and mimic the expressions of ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

So now hopefully we are all in agreement that masks stem spread of the virus AND have harmful effects on students. So the question is how the cost benefit goes. I think given the extremely low risks involved for students and staff the answer is clear - no more masks. Same holds true for other things as well - no more school closures, no virtual learning, etc. Essentially, end all COVID mitigation measures in schools. (Other than vaccination mandates, which should be in place for all staff and students)

 

[Fenixgoon]

Well from a purely anecdotal perspective just ask anyone you know who is a teacher if mask wearing impedes their pedagogy. I don’t know one who says it doesn’t.

If you want something more empirical here you go:

Masked education? The benefits and burdens of wearing face masks in schools during the current Corona pandemic - PMC

Face masks can prevent the spread of the virus SARS-CoV-2, in particular as this spread can occur from people with no symptoms. However, covering the lower half of the face reduces the ability to communicate, interpret, and mimic the expressions of ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

So now hopefully we are all in agreement that masks stem spread of the virus AND have harmful effects on students. So the question is how the cost benefit goes. I think given the extremely low risks involved for students and staff the answer is clear - no more masks. Same holds true for other things as well - no more school closures, no virtual learning, etc. Essentially, end all COVID mitigation measures in schools. (Other than vaccination mandates, which should be in place for all staff and students)

I think that is a reasonable compromise. Have any states or school districts mandated student vaccination though?

 

[fskimospy]

I think that is a reasonable compromise. Have any states or school districts mandated student vaccination though?

Not to the best of my knowledge although New York is considering it. I think at the moment the fact that it’s under an EUA (which is also stupid) is precluding those conversations.

 

[Jaskalas]

If nothing else, schools need to have the pressure released from them today. So that Republicans cannot campaign with the issue tomorrow and gain power through it.

 

[Aikouka]

Well from a purely anecdotal perspective just ask anyone you know who is a teacher if mask wearing impedes their pedagogy. I don’t know one who says it doesn’t.

If you want something more empirical here you go:

Masked education? The benefits and burdens of wearing face masks in schools during the current Corona pandemic - PMC

Face masks can prevent the spread of the virus SARS-CoV-2, in particular as this spread can occur from people with no symptoms. However, covering the lower half of the face reduces the ability to communicate, interpret, and mimic the expressions of ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

So now hopefully we are all in agreement that masks stem spread of the virus AND have harmful effects on students. So the question is how the cost benefit goes. I think given the extremely low risks involved for students and staff the answer is clear - no more masks. Same holds true for other things as well - no more school closures, no virtual learning, etc. Essentially, end all COVID mitigation measures in schools. (Other than vaccination mandates, which should be in place for all staff and students)

To be blunt, the biggest thing that bothers me is that we could have likely nipped this thing in the bud much earlier on if we didn't have people so consistently pushing back against things like masking. So, I am a bit annoyed to see your insistence against masking in this regard as I would be annoyed if others suggested it elsewhere too. My problem largely stems from how it seems (to me) like you're trying to downplay the benefits of masking as being not as important as interactions between children and their peers/adults. I mean... I want us to be consistent with our masking so we can hopefully not have to have this debate at all soon. I'm also not trying to suggest that it's masks above all else, but just because children don't fall victim to COVID nearly as much as adults does not mean that children are incapable of spreading it to the more vulnerable adults around them.

What if schools tried to push for "no mask time"? I think the hard part is that this would need to be performed outdoors or in well ventilated, larger indoor areas. Students would still need to sit at an appropriate distance (after all, germs still travel in the air regardless of being outdoors and/or in a ventilated space). What I like about this is that it allows as nice compromise as we can give kids time to engage with each other, but still try to ensure that children don't become spreaders. Of course, with this being winter, this isn't the most ideal time to send kids outside. It doesn't really solve any in-class need for emotional reaction though.

Like I said, I don't think we need to be mask dictators, but we need to be careful that regressing policy doesn't also regress what progress we've made so far in reducing the spread. It's hard to say how things could have been -- mostly because that would be a counter-factual argument -- but I do wonder if things could have been much better by this point if people had just acted appropriately from the start.

 

[purbeast0]

I think we have a pretty good idea of its mortality rate and for children and the vaccinated it is very low.

If people want to set a date for the elimination of student masking a month from now I would take that as it’s better than nothing but I think people are going to want it to keep going in perpetuity and someone has to put a stop to it. People don’t seem to realize the harms it inflicts on kids and there’s no longer a good reason to do it.

My 6 year old son has been wearing a mask to school since last March when they went back in person.

It's inflicting exactly ZERO harm to him.

Stop making up that BS like wearing a mask harms them, it doesn't, and his entire elementary school full of children under 10 has less problems wearing a mask all day than an adult has wearing it for 10 minutes in a store.

I was in Microcenter today waiting in line and some guy comes in with the security guard following him. It's this old fat white guy who won't put his mask on and the security guard keeps telling him to put it on and showed him the signs posted everywhere. He basically ignored the security guard then i heard health issues, then saw the security guard on a walkie talkie. 2 minutes later he gets in line behind me 2 spots. I overheard the manager coming up and saying unless you put a mask on you will not be served. He put a gator up over his mouth but not his nose.

As I'm talking to the tech I see him come talk to another one. He said he spilled water on his keyboard of his laptop and it's not working. Dude pulls out his laptop and the top cover is FILLED with USA stickers all over it. It's like a MAGAT's truck full of flags/stickers/everything, except it was on this dudes laptop.

Fucking snowflake...

 

[Jaskalas]

...but we need to be careful that regressing policy doesn't also regress what progress we've made so far in reducing the spread.

Looking at how Omicron overtook the globe, this notion of progress made to "reduce the spread" is incredibly confusing.
Do you live in an area that remains heavily locked down?

Indiana went back to business as usual last summer. Heck, by summer 2020 most people had enough of it already, but Masks were still widely used until vaccines became the norm and "victory" was celebrated in July, 2021. Of course then came Delta, now Omicron. But we remain business as usual. Schools still have masks for kids though, even if most adults do not. Omicron may have given mask usage an upstick, up to 20% of the people here.

But given how Omicron is... everywhere... I am very confused by thy meaning.
When this wave has passed, vaccination should be the end all. Anyone not vaccinated should simply be celebrated for their role in reducing the Republican vote in the next election.

 

[fskimospy]

My 6 year old son has been wearing a mask to school since last March when they went back in person.

It's inflicting exactly ZERO harm to him.

Stop making up that BS like wearing a mask harms them, it doesn't, and his entire elementary school full of children under 10 has less problems wearing a mask all day than an adult has wearing it for 10 minutes in a store.

I was in Microcenter today waiting in line and some guy comes in with the security guard following him. It's this old fat white guy who won't put his mask on and the security guard keeps telling him to put it on and showed him the signs posted everywhere. He basically ignored the security guard then i heard health issues, then saw the security guard on a walkie talkie. 2 minutes later he gets in line behind me 2 spots. I overheard the manager coming up and saying unless you put a mask on you will not be served. He put a gator up over his mouth but not his nose.

As I'm talking to the tech I see him come talk to another one. He said he spilled water on his keyboard of his laptop and it's not working. Dude pulls out his laptop and the top cover is FILLED with USA stickers all over it. It's like a MAGAT's truck full of flags/stickers/everything, except it was on this dudes laptop.

Fucking snowflake...

I’m sorry to tell you that science disagrees with you.

 

[quikah]

WTF, this recall has nothing to do with mask mandates. This was because SF schools were closed for WAY too long and they pissed off the Chinese residents by killing merit based admission to Lowell High School. The school board were more concerned about diversity and renaming schools while keeping the schools closed.

 

[abj13]

I’m sorry to tell you that science disagrees with you.

Which science? The paper you cited provide, contrary to what you claim, zero empiric evidence of harm. The discussion of harm revolves around extrapolation of science, but never actually measures direct and immediate harm to children in a masked situation. In fact, many of the sections of the paper involve discussions of the importance of facial recognition to newborns, which is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, unless we're concerned about Stewie Griffin attending grade school. In what way does the three paragraphs discussing Duchenne versus Non-Duchenne smiles provide evidence of significant harm?

 

[shortylickens]

I should point out that in the regions and time segments where people were wearing masks and keeping their distance, the spread of cold and flu also slowed down considerably, as did cold and flu related deaths.
So, think about that for a minute or two.

 

[abj13]

I should point out that in the regions and time segments where people were wearing masks and keeping their distance, the spread of cold and flu also slowed down considerably, as did cold and flu related deaths.
So, think about that for a minute or two.

Yes, another important point. Doesn't mean masking should be done forever. But one of the bona fide SECONDARY advantages of masking has been the disruption of other viruses. 2020 saw virtually no RSV infections, and for 2021 it came early, but didn't have the same peak. And Flu? Normally there's 100-200 children dead because of the flu. Since the fall of 2020, there have been only 6 pediatric deaths. However, mortality isn't the driver of the decision regarding many pediatric diseases. Preventing disease, not death is an important marker, especially other markers of morbidity like hospitalization, days missed from school etc. Anyone who tried to cite mortality as a reason whether we should or should not do something in children, like vaccination, isn't following the metrics that are used in this age population.

Remember polio. Only ~1% develop paralysis, and of that 1% , only 2-5% die (so something like 0.05% of all children who are infected with polio if my math is correct, double check me).

 

[fskimospy]

Which science? The paper you cited provide, contrary to what you claim, zero empiric evidence of harm. The discussion of harm revolves around extrapolation of science, but never actually measures direct and immediate harm to children in a masked situation. In fact, many of the sections of the paper involve discussions of the importance of facial recognition to newborns, which is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, unless we're concerned about Stewie Griffin attending grade school. In what way does the three paragraphs discussing Duchenne versus Non-Duchenne smiles provide evidence of significant harm?

What are you babbling about now? Why would it need to measure direct and immediate harm? Is that some sort of made up standard you’re hoping to apply?

The paper discusses the various ways in which mask wearing negatively influences communication, which of course is at the heart of education. I would think the rational inferences from that would be obvious, but if they aren’t to you let me know.

 

[abj13]

What are you babbling about now? Why would it need to measure direct and immediate harm? Is that some sort of made up standard you’re hoping to apply?

The paper discusses the various ways in which mask wearing negatively influences communication, which of course is at the heart of education. I would think the rational inferences from that would be obvious, but if they aren’t to you let me know.

If you want something more empirical here you go:
Masked education? The benefits and burdens of wearing face masks in schools during the current Corona pandemic

So now hopefully we are all in agreement that masks stem spread of the virus AND have harmful effects on students.

Emphasis is mine.

Those are your words. Where are these empiric findings that masks "harmful effects on students" demonstrated in that paper? You posted it and made the claim it showed these harmful effects. So please justify exactly where it actually shows what you claim.

 

[fskimospy]

Emphasis is mine.

Those are your words. Where are these empiric findings that masks "harmful effects on students" demonstrated in that paper? You posted it and made the claim it showed these harmful effects. So please justify exactly where it actually shows what you claim.

Okay, so to be clear you’re backing off the ‘immediate and direct’ bit because you realized it was dumb, right? The idea that you would measure the effects of interventions on education by their direct and immediate benefit or harm would get you laughed at in an education conference. Imagine coming up with a new curriculum and having people demand ‘but did the kid learn more THIS AFTERNOON?!’

As far as ‘more empirical’ goes, the paper goes on at considerable length, citing empirical research, as to how masking inhibits some behaviors well established to be associated with effective teaching. Most of this is common sense stuff (if it’s harder to understand the teacher it’s harder for them to teach you…duh) but I think the parts about communicating affect and how emotional connections and communication are also parts of learning that are inhibited is useful to know.

If you’re looking for a paper that says ‘mask wearing reduces math scores by x%’ it doesn’t exist, if for no other reasons than there’s been insufficient time and the list of confounding variables is going to be immense.

This is for the most part common sense though - mask wearing interferes with some of the behaviors that are trademarks of effective teaching and learning so the reasonable inference is that mark wearing means learning loss. Again, just ask any teacher if they think it makes it harder to do their job. The overwhelming majority will say yes, even if they support them!

This has been an ongoing problem for the last year or so at least, that people focus only on the virus and not the cost of the interventions themselves. If people want to make the argument that suppressing the virus is worth less effective schooling that’s fine, but to pretend there’s no trade off there is stupidity.

 

[Zorba]

Agree, the main issue here seems to have been incompetence, not mask mandates.

School boards are also stupid by the way and should be eliminated. Put the mayor in charge of schools!

How about in states that the school districts has very little to do with city or county boundaries? Before the very recent times, the school boards I knew of where mostly people that had some clue about education and the mayor some political douche that would do the political expedite thing. I could see having the city council appoint the school board but not getting rid of it.

 

[Zorba]

1) The risk teachers face is extremely small if they are vaccinated. We commonly ask professionals to take far larger risks so this is not even remotely persuasive to me.

2) The risk to the children's family members is also extremely low if they are vaccinated. If they aren't vaccinated then they have brought this on themselves so I have no sympathy for them.

People need to remember that all of these mitigations have costs - closing the schools at all was a gigantic mistake that we will be paying for for a generation, there's no need to make things worse than they already are. The kids will be fine, the staff will be fine, time to move on and go back to helping these kids.

Closing schools in March of 2020 wasn't a gigantic mistake. Closing schools in Fall of 2020 when nearly everything else was open was fucking bullshit. Nothing else should've been reopened until it was deemed safe enough for kids. However, like with most things, kids were put on the bottom of the priority list and bars were put at the top.

 

[manly]

I think that is a reasonable compromise. Have any states or school districts mandated student vaccination though?

California has a student mandate taking effect this fall, I believe. However, the as-yet-unvaccinated rate in LAUSD is fairly high so I don't think they'll ever truly enforce it. It sort of depends on what happens this year. Many are assuming COVID is near-endemic, but every prior time people felt more comfortable, a worse variant emerged. IMHO people making firm predictions about the pandemic's imminent demise are making a lot of assumptions. But the reality is that there is little to no political will in the U.S. to fight COVID anymore. A small part of that is we have envy of countries like Denmark declaring "pandemic over" so even our Democratic governors are jumping aboard that train as it leaves the station.

 

[abj13]

Okay, so to be clear you’re backing off the ‘immediate and direct’ bit because you realized it was dumb, right? The idea that you would measure the effects of interventions on education by their direct and immediate benefit or harm would get you laughed at in an education conference. Imagine coming up with a new curriculum and having people demand ‘but did the kid learn more THIS AFTERNOON?!’

As far as ‘more empirical’ goes, the paper goes on at considerable length, citing empirical research, as to how masking inhibits some behaviors well established to be associated with effective teaching. Most of this is common sense stuff (if it’s harder to understand the teacher it’s harder for them to teach you…duh) but I think the parts about communicating affect and how emotional connections and communication are also parts of learning that are inhibited is useful to know.

If you’re looking for a paper that says ‘mask wearing reduces math scores by x%’ it doesn’t exist, if for no other reasons than there’s been insufficient time and the list of confounding variables is going to be immense.

This is for the most part common sense though - mask wearing interferes with some of the behaviors that are trademarks of effective teaching and learning so the reasonable inference is that mark wearing means learning loss. Again, just ask any teacher if they think it makes it harder to do their job. The overwhelming majority will say yes, even if they support them!

This has been an ongoing problem for the last year or so at least, that people focus only on the virus and not the cost of the interventions themselves. If people want to make the argument that suppressing the virus is worth less effective schooling that’s fine, but to pretend there’s no trade off there is stupidity.

The word choice is very much correct because we have to establish exactly what evidence is being shown in your cited paper. I want to see exactly where this paper demonstrates the empiric evidence that masks result in very real harms. And you even agree such empiric evidence of direct or immediate harms doesn't exist. You claim masks have harmful effects on students and now you admit there's actually no direct or immediate evidence of such. Its important for everyone to know that your argument isn't based on real empiric evidence that masks do have a harm but is based on conjecture.

But the rest of your response is really telling. If this paper actually showed the empiric evidence behind your claim, it would be very easy to provide all of us in this thread following along, exactly where the paper supports your claims. The statements. The references. The empiric studies. Please enlighten all of us, since you are reading something into this paper, what these first two sections cover as an illustrative example for everyone reading along:

4. Face masks impair face recognition and face identification

5. Face masks impair verbal and non-verbal communication

The author provides no evidence that facemaks in the educational setting leads to negative student outcomes. Ok... fine... so does the author provide us any empiric evidence that to what level face recognition or face identification matters in older children in the educational setting? All the author discusses is evidence in infants. How does this even apply to schools? Even if this was somehow a problem, the author even provides an easy mechanism to fix this issue in his very last paragraph in this section.

Similarly for the next section, how does the possible impairment of "verbal and non-verbal communication" lead to less "effective teaching," and thus a harm to students? Where's this empiric evidence? Is it considerable or negligible? The author admits that impact on verbal communication could be either "negligible" or "considerable." Why should we believe it is considerable and not negligible? Even the author of the paper refuses to make any claims here.

So... since this paper was supposed to be "more empirical," where does this paper show empiric evidence of masks having harmful effects on students???