The article quotes someone who believes this is the right thing to do and explains their perspective. This isn't the only view (nor the one endorsed by the physicians I know) but it's worth understanding in order to understand the public health trajectory of the next few years:

> Steven, a North Paulding student who asked that only his middle name be used, said he felt safe going to school without a mask. Most of the hallways he encountered, he said, were far less crowded than in the one in the photograph. And the virus itself, he said, didn’t seem like “much of a problem” in Paulding County.

> “I’ve only known three people to get it, other than the football players, obviously,” Steven said. “If I get it, I get it. I believe that’s what most people in my area's ideology is — if we get it, we get it.”

> Steven said he didn’t want to let worries about spreading the virus to his family control his life.

> “Most of my family, including my grandparents, think the same as well,” he said. “We just go on about our business and keep it out of our mind.”

The problem with that logic, of course[1], is that "if we get it we get it" is a statement of personal risk assumption. It doesn't address the rights of the people you will then infect, who you didn't involve in the decision. Some of those people don't want to get sick! Realistically, some of them are going to die.

[1] Well, in addition to "Football player cases don't count" -- no idea what that's about. Was there a specific outbreak in that county on a team?

===

Edit to add a grand-response to this comment (because HN's rate limiter has kicked in, sigh) that illustrates exactly the problem with reasoning I'm trying to point out:

> this logic [...] assumes somebody has a right to not be infected while in a public area.

It absolutely does not.

What if some sick kid comes home and unknowingly infects a grandparent who never left the house and never entered a public area? That's a routine kind of spread, in fact.

> The responsibility for the risk [...] cannot simply be laid at a different person's feet.

No, this is exactly the fallacy at work! There is no "responsibility" in a pandemic. There is no "fault". Those are abstractions dealing with INDIVIDUAL behavior, and we can't beat this with individual decisions, at all.

> ... "if we get it we get it"...

This fatalism exemplifies the lack of viable options available to the town's populace. Parents can't homeschool and work at the same time in the absence of external support from state or Fed, combined with the cited lack of basics like computers and connection in family's homes for remote learning.

Is it attitude or ideology issue? To me this rings more like a social and economic disparity issue, not just in the given town/state, but on the nationwide scale.

Simply speaking, it's a fatalism that is driven by poverty.

Or maybe it's just an ideology "issue".

Maybe there's nothing "wrong" with these people. Maybe they just believe it's all in god's hands or whatever. We might not agree with it but it's not quantitatively wrong.

I dislike when people's reaction to an alternate viewpoint is to claim that the other side's judgement has been clouded by economic conditions, mental illness, or something else outside their control because it implicitly denies them agency.

Aren’t they denying themselves agency by saying its “in Gods hands” instead of taking the necessary precautions?

How is it any better for their judgement to be clouded by religious beliefs than economic conditions or mental illness?

It’s also hypocritical for them to say it’s “in Gods hands” according to the Bible instead of taking the necessary precautions.

I’m not saying anything about the veracity of the Bible, but if that’s what they believe in....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_4:7

> combined with the cited lack of basics like computers and connection in family's homes for remote learning.

I never would have considered this a potential issue in developed countries before, but recently I was talking to someone from rural Louisiana who noted when school tried launch online, many parents were up in arms because a lot of people just didn't have internet service.

The article says multiple players on that very school's team tested positive after crowding in a gym for a fundraiser.

And the school is opening anyway, even though it's confirmed that some staff are infected as well.

I don't understand how people can be so damn insensitive to how much damage they can cause.

The problem with this logic, of course, is that it assumes somebody has a right to not be infected while in a public area. That "somebody" is also in a public area, so the risk is entirely by their own choice. They don't know who could be infected, but they're out in public anyways. The responsibility for the risk that "somebody" undertakes cannot simply be laid at a different person's feet.

The flip side of that argument plays out, at its worst, in what gets charged as 'negligent homicide', or even 'voluntary manslaughter'.

If you can take reasonable precautions that barely inconvenience you, but could easily prevent potentially fatal infections, what does it say about your morality that you choose not to?

It's a choice between doing small things that can easily benefit many more people than yourself, or deliberately choosing to risk others' health just "because".

If knowingly + intentionally spreading HIV isn't a felony (thanks, California [0]) why should not fully minimizing the risk of personally contracting and then spreading COVID be one? ("mandate condoms during anal sex to reduce the spread of HIV" is actually pretty comparable to "mandate masks when outside to reduce the spread of COVID", incidentally)

Not to say it's a good thing to do, but that doesn't mean it reaches the level of "crime".

0: https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/07/health/california-hiv-bill-si...

>mandate condoms during anal sex to reduce the spread of HIV" is actually pretty comparable to "mandate masks when outside to reduce the spread of COVID", incidentally

One instance of unprotected anal sex does not have the chance to infect 50+ others. Anal sex is a pretty clear situation where both parties can make the choice to take the risk if they want, and not hurt anyone else.

If I go outside without a mask and have COVID and breathe on something, that has a chance of infecting lots of people

Ehhhh. I wouldn't be surprised if the average instance of "HIV+ person without PReP having unprotected anal sex" infects more people than "COVID-19 positive person visits a mall without a mask" does. The worst case of 50 people can be higher without the average also being higher, is what I mean.

Further... Everyone else at the mall can also choose to not take that risk, though it's not really true for students in high school.

> Further... Everyone else at the mall can also choose to not take that risk, though it's not really true for students in high school.

There's that fallacy again. It won't die. It's not just the people in the mall. It's everyone THEY will infect, and the next generation of infections, and the next.

A pandemic like this (contra HIV, which is very uninfectious and is transmitted almost exclusively by consensual 1:1 activities) just plain isn't susceptible to moral reasoning at the level of individual actions. There is NO feasible way an individual can make an informed choice to "accept" risk of covid infection that doesn't also increase (significantly!) the risk borne by the rest of society.

You can't do it. Any moral statement of the form "this infection risk is OK because I/he/she/they are OK with it" is just wrong, logically.

I think our disagreement here comes from a difference in axioms or moral systems, not arguments or data.

It does indeed, but (no, as it were, offense) yours doesn't work logically, at least not with the words you're choosing.

You can't wave away all the mall-goers risk-taking with "they chose it", because you're not including all their siblings and roommates and parents who they'll necessarily infect who did NOT choose that. You need to come up with another definition for "choice" than the one we conventionally understand.

Again, you're using language of individual risk. That doesn't work here.

I think you need to take a look at some other ethical systems. There's a famous example of Kant saying it's immoral to lie to prevent your friend from being murdered - that the consequences of the act have no bearing on whether the act is moral or not. The parallels here should be at least somewhat apparent. This isn't my code, but it's not exactly unheard of. (And a ton of people would argue that Kantian ethics are fucking stupid. In the end, all ethical systems lead to absurdity at the edges)

For the mall example... That other person, who chose to come there and be exposed? The one with roommates, and a grandmother living next door? It's not me - living alone, in this scenario - who chooses to expose them. It's the one who lives with them, if anyone. You're taking their responsibility and piling it on to me - but there's a lot of links in the causal chain before the harm comes to pass, and some of those links bear far more responsibility. It's like blaming the guy who goes to the bar after a long day for the actions of another guy who goes to the same bar and kills a family drunk driving home, because by being there he contributed to an atmosphere of heavy drinking.

The language of individual risk and responsibility isn't quite so limited in my mind as it is in yours.

I meant to say something closer to 'should rise to the level of', I didn't mean to imply that it is a crime now.

I didn't know that about the California law... but I understand that treatment is much more effective so I can see why it's no longer at a felony level.

How about those not wearing masks or at least maintaining minimum recommended behavior to minimize transmission get a 'reckless endangerment' and/or 'child endangerment' instead, not quite so Heavy Felony but still a solid signal to others that NOT helping to stop the spread of this is morally incorrect.

Edit: to more closely convey my understanding of the CA bill changes.

Yes. See the original linked article.

> Ideology

Our schools are going virtual when they reopen but there are plenty of parents who object. Several reasons come up

- Virtual learning did not work at the end of last year, and most parents think it's unlikely to work this year. I'll wait and see, but I'm also pessimistic about virtual learning for kids 5-18. It's just not engaging in that age range.

- Related, families with two working parents are going to be very limited in their ability to work with their kid, e.g., make sure they are attending/paying attention in their zoom meetings, keep track of their assignments and make sure they are getting worked on, really sit and help with challenging projects and assignments.

- Along the same lines, families with two parents who are or will be working outside the home are really in a bind.

- Finally, there is continuing uncertainty about kids getting/transmitting Covid to the point where some people feel it's worth the risk. There is also a persistent group of parents who think this is all overwrought - they believe otherwise healthy kids and adults under the age of 60 are so are just unlikely to get very sick from Covid, certainly not more than any other virus.

There's a wide range of feelings. I don't think the schools should open, but I'm also quietly prepared for this to be a lost educational year for my kids.

> I don't think the schools should open, but I'm also quietly prepared for this to be a lost educational year for my kids.

"Quietly prepared" as in what? You're just going to accept it? Or you're going do what you have to to fill in the gaps and make it not a lost year for your kids?

I'd urge you (and everyone) to go for the second option. They're your kids. They're not the school system's kids; they're yours. If you have to spend time and/or money to make sure that they actually get the education they need (because the school system can't or won't[1]), even if you have to give up some things to do so, do what you can to help your kids.

[1] I'm not yelling at the school system here. They're in an impossible situation. They can't function at 100% effectiveness in an impossible situation? No shame in that, and no surprise, either.

I'm accepting it, make of that what you will.

About the only thing I can give up to help this situation is my job. I'm not yet willing to make that trade.

No, I'm not suggesting that you should give up your job.

But can you give up half an hour an evening, to work with your kids on... well, on anything that would help fill in the gaps? That costs time and energy, and it's hard after working all day. But it can make a difference.

Maybe a starting point is to identify what the gaps are. Whatever your kids' district is doing, what isn't working? What specifically isn't working for your kids? Is there anything you can do to help that for your kids?

It's not all or nothing. But each bit costs time, thought, maybe some money, and energy. Still, despite the costs, I'd encourage you to try to do what you can.

How do you propose the average couple in America that is living from paycheck to paycheck to make that sacrifice?

Schools in the US are, as a general rule, chronically underfunded. If they had money they could have erected tents outside in playing fields and car parks to allow teaching while socially distant.

But slashing school budgets has been a popular political hobby for decades now and requests for emergency funding have fallen on deaf ears. So here we are.

"The most recent version for 2018 reports that, in 2015, the United States spent approximately $12,800 per student on elementary and secondary education. That is over 35% more than the OECD country average of $9,500. " https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/020915/what-country....

And yet individual teachers still have to go out and buy supplies for their classes because there is no budget for them. There is a huge, huge amount of money being wasted.

>> There is a huge, huge amount of money being wasted.

Exactly.

I have doubts that classes could be effectively conducted outdoors in Georgia. The heat index is 93F/34C with 59% humidity as I’m writing this comment. This isn’t Northern California where people can start companies in a garage year round.

The school in the article is in Georgia, so tents might not even cost. As much as air conditioning...

Wall Street has decreed that capitalism must go on at all costs. That requires workers to show up to work. That requires that workers don't need stay home to watch kids. And that requires that kids not be at home during business hours.

Few believe that this is the right thing to do. Powerful businesspeople believe it's the profitable thing to do. So, here we are.

> That requires workers to show up to work.

Is there another system that enables all workers to work/sit at home without any negative impacts to the nation's short term and long term economical success?

Short term? No, definitely not. Short-term economic pain was going to happen regardless of policy. Stay open and let the virus spread like wildfire, or shut down and ship helicopter money to people to prevent social unrest - either one brings short-term pain.

But there's absolutely a way to avoid long-term pain: the aforementioned lockdown/helicopter-money plan. Shut down, have everyone not absolutely essential stay isolated as much as humanly possible, provide direct cash payments to individuals or huge wage subsidies tied to mandatory guarantees not to lay anyone off, provide free health care to everyone affected, and enforce internal travel restrictions to keep outbreaks contained. Countries that have gone down this route are now starting to open back up with minimal death tolls and stabilizing economies.

The US, to put it mildly, did not do this. Practically every level of government of all political stripes completely bungled it. Counties screwed up, cities screwed up, states screwed up, legislative and executive federal branches screwed up. It was a hodgepodge of counterproductive idiocy by politicians and officials of all political parties and ideological stripes. And Wall Street & friends aided and abetted this insanity by whining about how a full shutdown early on would "harm the economy".

> But there's absolutely a way to avoid long-term pain: the aforementioned lockdown/helicopter-money plan. Shut down, have everyone not absolutely essential stay isolated as much as humanly possible, provide direct cash payments to individuals or huge wage subsidies tied to mandatory guarantees not to lay anyone off, provide free health care to everyone affected, and enforce internal travel restrictions to keep outbreaks contained.

I am guessing one of the countries you would be taking about is South Korea? The one that that provided up to 14% of their GDP in subsidies to do the things you listed [0]. This being of course after major money makers declining: international travel (accounts for 4.2% of GDP) and exports (40% of GDP) [0].

It's safe to say some printers are hard at work somewhere. Long term pain solved for government officials not for it's citizens. I would say the same thing about the US as well.

I do agree with your last paragraph highly.

0:https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/covid-19-pushes-south-korea-...

Actually, I was thinking of my own country, Canada. There's still occasional small outbreaks, but aside from some limits on large gatherings and some requirements to self-isolate when traveling between certain provinces, things are starting to open back up.

>Long term pain solved for government officials not for it's citizens.

Only financial pain. But that was inevitable as soon as the pandemic hit. Given a choice between financial pain for a few decades, and financial pain for a few decades combined with a potential literal decimation of the population, I'm perfectly fine with the solo financial pain.

> ...financial pain for a few decades combined with a potential literal decimation of the population, I'm perfectly fine with the solo financial pain

You will be getting decimation of the population with financial pain regardless.

Of all the “Wall Street” people I know, no one is advocating not wearing masks or opening schools. The only people I’ve seen with an anti mask policy are those very far from Wall St.

I'm not talking about mask policies. I'm talking about "get employees back to work at all costs to save profits" policies.

I don’t hear any Wall St types clamoring for that either. The states far away from Wall St are the ones banging their drums to open.

Wall Street isn’t insisting on that at all.

People on Wall Street are quite happy with the current state of affairs. The five largest companies in the US - all tech - are doing great. The other companies that are important are considered “essential”.

It’s the small businesses that are struggling. This is a great opportunity for large companies.

Elon Musk may not be anti-mask but he is pretty clearly an example of someone who doesn't give a shit about public health policy.

Politicians with their heads up their asses, pandering to their voter base. This nation needs some new political thought to really take hold. Both conservatives and liberals are massive echo chambers, and people are so invested in the duality that they will vote for an absolute shitbag just to keep a different absolute shitbag out of office.

> pandering to their voter base.

Isn't that kind of what we want?

If GA's politicians pandered to CA's base it would probably turn violent pretty quickly.

The problem is that GA Governor is pandering to his base by suing mayors in his own state who want stricter restrictions.

That's how you end up with lizards as presidents. /s

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162557-it-comes-from-a-very...

Because American identity is deeply bound up in the idea that you have to work to be virtuous. If you're not at work, you're lazy, and lazy people literally don't deserve to live.

Our schools are both warehouses for young people, so that their parents can work, and training grounds so that they can be prepared to work themselves. If the schools are closed, their parents can't work.

That causes an enormous ripple effect. If some people can't work, then they don't have money, causing other people to lose their own jobs. That cascades through the system, tearing down not just the economy, but the American sense of self. If we're not at work, who are we?

The US sees itself as the hardest-working, most virtuous nation in the world. God literally "shed his grace" on us. We deserve to be the richest because we're the best. Closing the schools not only shuts down our vaunted advantage, but admits that we can be beaten. We imagine ourselves able to solve crises through hard work and superior intellect, and if we can't, we are failures.

At this point, it has become a matter of self-division as well. We've divided ourselves along lines that aren't even really ideological any more. The right wing has defined itself as opposed to "leftists", so anything the left proposes must be bad. If they want to wear masks and close down schools, then we will ban masks and open schools. It didn't even pass through a cost-benefit calculation, or at best one defined retroactively to justify the conclusion.

Looked at this way, it seems pretty inevitable that opening the schools was going to happen, at least in places like Georgia that fall on the one side of that divide I mentioned.

If we accept your point, doesn’t that imply that these officials and their supporters are incapable of thinking two steps ahead?

School enables parents to work (1), but school is also a super spreader event that will sicken parents, preventing work (2).

It’s baffling.

The number of parents it sickens is relatively small, since many will have minor or no symptoms, and only a very few will die. The way they see it, the economy will soldier on, and we can afford to lose, say, a million random people. It probably won't be them or somebody they care about, and it would just be on a par with, say, cancer or heart disease.

Nowhere near as bad as Endgame... so yeah, a little culling is good for the herd, right? /s

It all comes down to who the people making these decisions are trying to please. The elected officials (assuming they're at least sort of doing their job) are acting on what they think will please the most voters. The net difference in the number of constituents hate this option, the next option, and every other feasible option for the school year is likely very small. This is what the tyranny of the majority looks like.

But of course thinking about the incentives and mechanisms that lead to this outcome is uncomfortable and clutching our pearls is comfortable and easy so what we'll do is a forgone conclusion.

Edit: I'm personally no fan of the policy the school chose but asinine or not they didn't choose it for no reason and it's worth exploring what lead to the people making the decisions to choose what they chose.

Edit2: Some of you would do well to read only the words I am writing here and not assume any unwritten meaning or motivation. I am specifically trying to avoid debating whether this particular instance of public policy is good/bad/right/wrong and some of you seem to be very eager to do just that.

During a health crisis popular or unpopular does not matter. You do what is necessary wither you like it or not. What these "leaders" are doing is complete incompetence and negligent.

The problem is that 'necessary' to the people driving the Georgia decisions seems to be 'necessary to support my beliefs and my fiscal policy', not 'necessary for the best good of all'.

> There is no right or wrong when it comes to reopening, only unpopular and even more unpopular and it all comes down to who you're trying to please.

Which path forward "pleases" you the most? I can't believe this needs asking but: How many deaths are you willing to tolerate before you are no longer "pleased" by this approach? If one approach "pleases" you but "kills" someone else, how should we balance that tradeoff?

This is nonsense. If the administration actually made a good-faith effort, they would have re-opened, with a mask mandate.

They haven't made a good-faith effort. This isn't what tyrrany of the majority looks like, this is what the end result of a cynical propaganda campaign looks like.

Good faith for who? To you and me and other people who aren't from there?

The fact that a public official felt comfortable calling masks a "personal choice" tells me that this district isn't a big fan of masks.

Or it means that the public official is just virtue signaling that they aren't a big fan of masks.

I am positive that this school has a dress code. For some reason, though, they feel that they can prescribe what students can wear, unless it's a mask..?

>Or it means that the public official is just virtue signaling that they aren't a big fan of masks.

If they're virtue signaling then by definition they're showing support for whatever the locally accepted opinion already is.

That opinion doesn't have to be widely locally accepted. You have no idea how many people support it - whether it's 20% of the population, 40% of the population, or 80% of the population.

They could have made this decision the other way, and your arguments, when used in defense of it would be just as sound.

It's quite possible to be virtue signaling to a minority. Just because you're an administrator in a public service doesn't mean that you are actually doing what the community wants you to do - especially when there are limited ways of removing you.

It's even possible that the minority you are virtue signaling to is politicians and insiders - who actually have ways of removing you. It would be incredibly stupid of you to not do what they want.

>that opinion doesn't have to be widely locally accepted.

You're not technically wrong but it would be monumentally stupid to do for this particular opinion.

>It's quite possible to be virtue signaling to a minority.

And it's moronic for an elected official to do that if the nature of the signal will absolutely enrage a majority or a different larger minority which "a mask is a personal choice" most certainly does.

Exactly what the school doesn't want, all the political consequence falling on them even though health experts coordinating over data should be the ones making the call at higher levels of government.

> There is no right or wrong when it comes to reopening...

Which is exactly the view that politicians want to foster with this pandemic. Unfortunately, they're politicians and not infectious disease specialists.