They have studied this though. Actual scientists, not people on Youtube or Facebook, and they have found that masks diminish the transmission of COVID-19. This is kind of what you'd expect with something airborne.
At least 9 out of 10 children in the ICUs in North Carolina were obese.
https://www.wfae.org/health/2021-09-30/novant-says-9-of-10-c...
The iron-fisted one-size-fits-all approach has never been used in medicine and health except COVID.
Along the same lines, ingoring this differentiator has allowed the gov the take a heavy handed on size fits all approach. If the risk is targeted, why is the loss of rights applied to everyone?
Finally, this approach is now being used to jab the kids.
That isn't justice. In fact - whether anyone agrees or disagree s - it smells like textbook authoritarianism. In that context, we are all discarded.
So all the bushiness owners and fancy lad writers, managers, programmers, and other white collars are better positioned to withstand the pandemic with virtually every advantage in both isolation and physical health. All those guys that eat shit because they don't have money or time and burn themselves out physically working hard get to die.
In a slightly different category of person, it's morbidly fascinating watching unvaccinated people on twitter note their buddy just died and say they had comorbidities with a profile pic that shows them to be obese.
In this case, we have to judge whether the petty authoritarianism of those that spread illness and death vs the government pushing everyone to help stop that with, at this point, a fairly convincingly safe vaccine.
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577.long
Why does everyone promote cloth masks, instead of proper N95 masks?
Other developed countries are not masking kids as young as we are doing. Countries like France are rescinding mask mandates now. For us, there is no end in sight, even in highly vaccinated areas.
"Is it worth it" is an ongoing question; at some point, it's probably not, but we're not there just yet. Our vaccination rates are still pretty low. And remember: the bellowing about masks started before we even had vaccines.
It is a political and value judgement to err on the side of minuscule improvement, if any at all, from wearing masks and mandating vaccines for cohorts that statistically don't need to worry about covid, while degrading the social development of children, and hurting the wider economic interests of people affected by endless restrictions. These are all political questions. There are no all encompassing "facts" that delineate who is harmed and who is helped and in what proportions. That is the realm of politics.
Not really, 221 Million have had it-least 1 shot in the US and another 73 Million are under 18 and are at almost no risk (558 total deaths).
The covid risk for children is a rounding error. This is not prudent risk management; mind-boggling for someone from the tech industry who should be able to do a cursory look at statistics and dismiss this practice out of hand.
> Blocking the faces of children in the prime of their
> life, where they need to develop social skills through
> interaction and facial expression, is madness.
> The covid risk for children is a rounding error.
Assuming what you meant is "children are less likely to develop severe symptoms," and also that that's true: they can still spread the virus to the adults they live with in their homes, or the many adults that share the school building they're in. (Did you think we just shove kids in an adult-less environment, or that teachers are somehow immune?)
[1]: https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboa...
I disagree that it's worth harming kids development to attempt to avoid spreading a coronavirus that is becoming endemic, will always be around, and whose spread can't be stopped. Not worth it.
Ohio total covid deaths: 24,763
Ohio total 18 and under covid deaths: 12
Ohio total 18 and under population (2019): 2,578,019
If this isn't a rounding error, what is?
You are looking for the wrong thing. Look for what the benefits of things like smiling and seeing smiling faces has on people's emotional health.
> A happy face signals positive emotions, as well as attachment availability, care, support, and credibility [7,8,9]. Recently, Tamir and Hughes [10] argued that positive social signals such as smiling faces not only serve ultimate goals (e.g., forming strong bonds) but they are also rewarding in and off themselves.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6356968/
https://www.healthline.com/health/baby/when-will-my-baby-smi...
Hiding the main part of your face - the smile is not healthy for people, and especially not for kids whose entire social skills development heavily relies on these things.
Being proud to be "obedient" is not always a good thing. Also this cannot be generalized. Plus it doesn't make something being mandatory right, especially when looking at people's smiles is crucial for kids development.
What I'm observing is that peculiar mix of self consciousness, smugness, and pride you sometimes see in young children, when they believe they are acting morally.
I'm not using quite the right words here - the emotions I'm listing are more mature. But the same emotions exist in children, just not fully matured.
Since the parents were maskless, I think the kids wanted to wear theirs because they've been taught at school that it's the right thing to do. The ones I observed appeared to be around eight years old.
And mandating something which neither prevents catching, nor transmitting the virus is definitely not a "minor inconvenience".
EDIT: In my last sentence, I wasn't referring to masks. I was referring to vaccine mandates which the truck driver also ran on.