<story><title>The case against masks at school</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/kids-masks-schools-weak-science/621133/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>watersb</author><text>I actually want to hear good reasons for avoiding vaccinations, because many people care a lot about that.&lt;p&gt;I can understand immuno-compromised people, an underlying medical condition, for whom a vaccine may not work or may be dangerous. Undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer? Got it: vaccines won&amp;#x27;t help you (or anyone else) until you can get past the cancer.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t agree with an argument from stand-my-ground, my-body-my-choice principles. I could agree with such a line of reasoning, &lt;i&gt;if&lt;/i&gt; a personal choice did not present an immediate danger to anyone else.&lt;p&gt;This is a very infectious disease with severe health consequences. No one has control over the outcome, if they choose to infect another person. Maybe it&amp;#x27;s no big deal for them. Or maybe it wrecks their life, long after the vaccine objector has left the scene.&lt;p&gt;What are some other reasons for avoiding vaccination?</text></item><item><author>colpabar</author><text>&amp;gt; Gosh, it&amp;#x27;s like vaccines work and that&amp;#x27;s the way out of this.&lt;p&gt;You know, I see snarky little comments like this becoming more and more common on this site, and I&amp;#x27;d just like to point out that they are not helpful in any way. Who is it directed towards? Do you think you are convincing &lt;i&gt;anyone&lt;/i&gt;, or encouraging a productive discussion? I&amp;#x27;d be willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of people on this website are vaccinated. I know I am.&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, that line is the equivalent of saying &amp;quot;gosh, maybe black people should just stop committing crimes if they don&amp;#x27;t want to go to jail&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;gosh, maybe gay people should just stop having unprotected sex if they don&amp;#x27;t want HIV.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I am begging you, and everyone else, PLEASE, if you want to make a point, please do it in a respectful way that doesn&amp;#x27;t assume anyone who disagrees is stupid. If you need to be snarky, go do it on the-site-that-must-not-be-named.</text></item><item><author>perardi</author><text>NYTimes has a pretty good source on this.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;interactive&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;covid-hospitals-near-you.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;interactive&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;covid-hospitals-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll tell you that here in Chicago, based off data, and anecdotes: really depends on the neighborhood. Vaccinated areas? Doing fine. Undervaccinated areas? Not doing so well.&lt;p&gt;Gosh, it&amp;#x27;s like vaccines work and that&amp;#x27;s the way out of this.</text></item><item><author>lr1970</author><text>&amp;gt; They&amp;#x27;d also know that pretty much the only condition we&amp;#x27;re treating nowadays is Covid.&lt;p&gt;This statement might be true for your location but is not true in general. Here in New York City hospitalizations due to covid are not very high and going down quickly. Elective surgeries and procedures go on as scheduled. ICUs are not overrun with covid specific cases. Majority of the patients with positive PCR test are hospitalized for medical reasons other than covid. Recorded deaths do not differentiate between &amp;quot;died from covid&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;died while covid positive&amp;quot; making death statistics hard to interpret. In general, compared to the situation on the ground in March-April 2020 this time the covid load on NYC hospital system is lighter.&lt;p&gt;The biggest challenge is staffing shortages in the hospitals due to general burn-out, people being on sick leave due to spreading omicron. Noticeable percentage of nurses were laid off because of the vaccine mandate (i am not judging the mandate, just stating the consequence).&lt;p&gt;SOURCE: several physician relatives and friends working in NYC hospitals (Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn).</text></item><item><author>taylodl</author><text>General observation from reading the comments - the folks on HN must not have many friends working in medicine for if they had they&amp;#x27;d realize those friends are swamped and burned-out. They&amp;#x27;d also know that pretty much the only condition we&amp;#x27;re treating nowadays is Covid. Surgeries are continuing to be postponed - including surgeries that can lead to worse problems down the road such as removing cancerous tumors.&lt;p&gt;And it gets worse. My daughter is in pre-med. Apparently people are dropping out like flies and not just because of the course load. They&amp;#x27;re watching how medical professionals are being treated and saying screw it! This should concern us all because we&amp;#x27;ve had a marked uptick of medical professionals retiring&amp;#x2F;resigning since the pandemic started and now the pipeline is thinning out.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;re walking headlong into a disaster and nobody seems to care. And that&amp;#x27;s not even dealing with the problem of Global Climate Change which, guess what? Still hasn&amp;#x27;t gone away and there doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be much interest in caring about that either, not that there ever was.&lt;p&gt;You can see what our child-bearing aged children think of all this - they&amp;#x27;re not having kids. I don&amp;#x27;t think this is a short-term aberration. We&amp;#x27;re a population literally in decline.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throwawaythekey</author><text>Just today Sweden&amp;#x27;s health agency advised against the vaccine for kids&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; STOCKHOLM, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Sweden has decided against recommending COVID vaccines for kids aged 5-11, the Health Agency said on Thursday, arguing that the benefits did not outweigh the risks.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reuters.com&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;europe&amp;#x2F;sweden-decides-against-recommending-covid-vaccines-kids-aged-5-12-2022-01-27&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reuters.com&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;europe&amp;#x2F;sweden-decides-against-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not super well versed in the science but it seems like reasonable parties advise against vaccination in certain scenarios. Also knowing that government bodies are more likely to prioritize group outcomes over individual outcomes it seems reasonable for individuals to be skeptical.</text></comment>
<story><title>The case against masks at school</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/kids-masks-schools-weak-science/621133/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>watersb</author><text>I actually want to hear good reasons for avoiding vaccinations, because many people care a lot about that.&lt;p&gt;I can understand immuno-compromised people, an underlying medical condition, for whom a vaccine may not work or may be dangerous. Undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer? Got it: vaccines won&amp;#x27;t help you (or anyone else) until you can get past the cancer.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t agree with an argument from stand-my-ground, my-body-my-choice principles. I could agree with such a line of reasoning, &lt;i&gt;if&lt;/i&gt; a personal choice did not present an immediate danger to anyone else.&lt;p&gt;This is a very infectious disease with severe health consequences. No one has control over the outcome, if they choose to infect another person. Maybe it&amp;#x27;s no big deal for them. Or maybe it wrecks their life, long after the vaccine objector has left the scene.&lt;p&gt;What are some other reasons for avoiding vaccination?</text></item><item><author>colpabar</author><text>&amp;gt; Gosh, it&amp;#x27;s like vaccines work and that&amp;#x27;s the way out of this.&lt;p&gt;You know, I see snarky little comments like this becoming more and more common on this site, and I&amp;#x27;d just like to point out that they are not helpful in any way. Who is it directed towards? Do you think you are convincing &lt;i&gt;anyone&lt;/i&gt;, or encouraging a productive discussion? I&amp;#x27;d be willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of people on this website are vaccinated. I know I am.&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, that line is the equivalent of saying &amp;quot;gosh, maybe black people should just stop committing crimes if they don&amp;#x27;t want to go to jail&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;gosh, maybe gay people should just stop having unprotected sex if they don&amp;#x27;t want HIV.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I am begging you, and everyone else, PLEASE, if you want to make a point, please do it in a respectful way that doesn&amp;#x27;t assume anyone who disagrees is stupid. If you need to be snarky, go do it on the-site-that-must-not-be-named.</text></item><item><author>perardi</author><text>NYTimes has a pretty good source on this.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;interactive&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;covid-hospitals-near-you.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;interactive&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;us&amp;#x2F;covid-hospitals-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll tell you that here in Chicago, based off data, and anecdotes: really depends on the neighborhood. Vaccinated areas? Doing fine. Undervaccinated areas? Not doing so well.&lt;p&gt;Gosh, it&amp;#x27;s like vaccines work and that&amp;#x27;s the way out of this.</text></item><item><author>lr1970</author><text>&amp;gt; They&amp;#x27;d also know that pretty much the only condition we&amp;#x27;re treating nowadays is Covid.&lt;p&gt;This statement might be true for your location but is not true in general. Here in New York City hospitalizations due to covid are not very high and going down quickly. Elective surgeries and procedures go on as scheduled. ICUs are not overrun with covid specific cases. Majority of the patients with positive PCR test are hospitalized for medical reasons other than covid. Recorded deaths do not differentiate between &amp;quot;died from covid&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;died while covid positive&amp;quot; making death statistics hard to interpret. In general, compared to the situation on the ground in March-April 2020 this time the covid load on NYC hospital system is lighter.&lt;p&gt;The biggest challenge is staffing shortages in the hospitals due to general burn-out, people being on sick leave due to spreading omicron. Noticeable percentage of nurses were laid off because of the vaccine mandate (i am not judging the mandate, just stating the consequence).&lt;p&gt;SOURCE: several physician relatives and friends working in NYC hospitals (Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn).</text></item><item><author>taylodl</author><text>General observation from reading the comments - the folks on HN must not have many friends working in medicine for if they had they&amp;#x27;d realize those friends are swamped and burned-out. They&amp;#x27;d also know that pretty much the only condition we&amp;#x27;re treating nowadays is Covid. Surgeries are continuing to be postponed - including surgeries that can lead to worse problems down the road such as removing cancerous tumors.&lt;p&gt;And it gets worse. My daughter is in pre-med. Apparently people are dropping out like flies and not just because of the course load. They&amp;#x27;re watching how medical professionals are being treated and saying screw it! This should concern us all because we&amp;#x27;ve had a marked uptick of medical professionals retiring&amp;#x2F;resigning since the pandemic started and now the pipeline is thinning out.&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;re walking headlong into a disaster and nobody seems to care. And that&amp;#x27;s not even dealing with the problem of Global Climate Change which, guess what? Still hasn&amp;#x27;t gone away and there doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be much interest in caring about that either, not that there ever was.&lt;p&gt;You can see what our child-bearing aged children think of all this - they&amp;#x27;re not having kids. I don&amp;#x27;t think this is a short-term aberration. We&amp;#x27;re a population literally in decline.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ifyoubuildit</author><text>Having already had an infection before you were able to get vaccinated.&lt;p&gt;A recent CDC study [0] joins plenty of others from last year in showing that these people were at least as protected from infections and severe outcomes during delta as those who were vaccinated without a prior infection.&lt;p&gt;Avoiding getting something that offers little benefit and offers even small risks makes sense to me.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ve probably spent the last year being told these people are trying to murder your family though, so it also makes sense to me if you don&amp;#x27;t agree with this.&lt;p&gt;[0]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cdc.gov&amp;#x2F;mmwr&amp;#x2F;volumes&amp;#x2F;71&amp;#x2F;wr&amp;#x2F;mm7104e1.htm?s_cid=mm7104e1_w&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cdc.gov&amp;#x2F;mmwr&amp;#x2F;volumes&amp;#x2F;71&amp;#x2F;wr&amp;#x2F;mm7104e1.htm?s_cid=mm...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>