“This is an explicit call for vaccinated children to be forced to mask permanently. This is utterly insane.” Yes this is insane if your only concern is COVID. But what’s the positive impact on other diseases if we permanently mask kids while at school? What is the lifelong fitness and intelligence loss caused by pathogens that infect us when we are children? How much protection would masking kids give us against potential future bioterrorist attacks?
how much protection would allowing children that have at-home parents to stay at home and only come to school optionally for recess to play with other kids give you? A lot more
Probably really bad, actually. The first thing that comes to mind here is the hygiene hypothesis—preventing kids from getting low-strength diseases as children when their immune systems are “being trained” to fight it off is likely going to cause issues in the future, and to solve a relatively small problem anyways (not many kids are hospitalized or die from other pathogens, and there isn’t any good evidence that the long-term effects of diseases on children cause fitness or intelligence loss in the general population). Not to mention, masks are a major cost. Would you ask adults to wear masks in the workplace permanently? Obviously you wouldn’t because that would cause riots. Requiring masks in schools for essentially tiny risks is significantly more overbearing and inconveniencing than, for example, requiring seatbelts, and yet it would likely save far fewer lives in the long run.
So forcing kids to mask permanently has:
Relatively tiny short-term effects, because not that many kids are dying of infectious diseases anyways;
Unknown long-term effects, because we really have no idea which way the fitness advantage is going and it may well be that minor infectious diseases as children are a positive thing;
An inconvenience ranging from minor to major for literally 56.4 million public and private school students, for 6-8 hours a day, or something like 143 billion person-hours per year.
Given that we are exposed to a lot more pathogens than were 99%+ of humans who have ever existed, the hygiene hypothesis doesn’t make theoretical sense. I can accept that if you are going to be exposed to a lot of pathogens as an adult you might be better off being exposed to them as a kid, but it seems that you would be better off if you are never exposed to them.
What do you mean and how do you know it? I’m guessing that you mean that density causes exposure to microorganisms adapted to humans. But we’re probably a lot less exposed to random microorganisms from eating dirt (though it’s not clear they should be called “pathogens”).
The hygiene hypothesis of allergy is speculative, but here’s a concrete, widely accepted claim: before 1900, infants contracted polio and had very mild cases. After 1900, they contracted it at a later age and had bad cases. This suggests increased hygiene at the same time of increasing density, apart from the question of whether hygiene is good or bad at the current margin.
I would expect the effect on health (in either direction) to be dwarved by stuff like: detrimental effects on understanding people (even as an adult I struggle quite a bit to communicate when both sides wear masks), especially if your teacher is masked, or if you’re learning English as a foreign language; detrimental effects on socializing (humans have various instincts for reading facial expressions which have not evolved to take masks into account); etc.
Common sense implies that they must be at least partially effective at reducing transmission of various diseases, in the same way that wearing gloves does (i.e. a barrier is created which partially blocks movement of potentially harmful particles).
Common sense also implies that masks will inevitably get dirty and will harbor pathogenic bacteria in a warm moist place contaminated with food and in close proximity to child’s face. Covid aside, this seems like a net negative from common sense perspective.
Presumably this is why surgeons wear them and why even before COVID it was common for sick people in Asia to wear them. Also premature births went down during lockdown perhaps because of a reduce spread of whatever pathogens contribute to premature births
“Sick kids should not be in school, masks or not. ” People should not be committing crime therefore we should not take costly preventive measures against crime.
We suffer from a lot of diseases that seemed not to effect hunter-gatherers living in their traditional environment, and we are exposed to lots more pathogens, and it’s possible indeed even likely that these pathogens are inflicting significant damage on us. What if, and this is just a wild guess, 20% of cancers, heart diseases, obesity and mental illnesses were caused by pathogens and the average adult living in a rich country has lost 5 IQ points because of pathogens? Common physical illnesses and mental illnesses not caused by pathogens or physical injury and striking people before old age are weird from an evolutionary viewpoint.
Living in cities is weird from evolutionary viewpoint.
What pathogens will be slowed by masks? How do we balance that with the inevitable reality that masks will get moist and dirty and harbor pathogenic microorganisms in close proximity with children’s faces? Do you have any studies that masks help more than hurt with any pathogen besides covid.
I don’t have any studies, but given that masks were in widespread usage by medical personal and in Asia before COVID my strong prior is that they significantly reduce the spread of some pathogens. I’m not claiming that kids should wear masks, I’m claiming that there is a lot we don’t know about masks and the harm pathogens inflict on kids and it is possible that if we knew more many reasonable people would want kids to wear masks while in school.
Medical personnel work in close proximity to obviously sick patients and particularly surgeons work close to open wounds. None of the medical professionals are children, they are trained to use their PPE and take care of it. Mask use in Asia may have more to do with protection from particular air pollution. There is no evidence that people in Asia are less susceptible to pathogens.
Pre-COVID, Asian students in my classes sometimes wore masks, presumably when they were sick and didn’t want to spread infection. We could train kids to use masks, it’s not that complicated. “No evidence” means we should generate evidence because of the massive amount of harm that pathogens cause, probably more than its generally realized because of their possible role in causing some cancers and lower some IQ scores.
During the pandemic, RSV and influenza (but little else) have been driven nearly to zero. They must be transmitted in the same ways as covid. It’s not clear how much of this is masks and how much is other interventions, but it’s not clear for covid, either.
We used to believe that for influenza handwashing and avoiding hand contact with mucous membranes is much more important than for covid. Are we updating on this?
I think that “we” believing is a category error. I think that even authorities “believing” is a category error. People did experiments to prove that hand sanitizer helped against the flu. They didn’t update on these experiments because they weren’t experiments to learn, but to prove what they wanted.
“This is an explicit call for vaccinated children to be forced to mask permanently. This is utterly insane.” Yes this is insane if your only concern is COVID. But what’s the positive impact on other diseases if we permanently mask kids while at school? What is the lifelong fitness and intelligence loss caused by pathogens that infect us when we are children? How much protection would masking kids give us against potential future bioterrorist attacks?
how much protection would allowing children that have at-home parents to stay at home and only come to school optionally for recess to play with other kids give you? A lot more
Throw in being able to go home if they start sneezing, or feel like it.
Precisely, the mask thing keeps the tourturous forced herding and makes it even worst, it’s inhumane.
Probably really bad, actually. The first thing that comes to mind here is the hygiene hypothesis—preventing kids from getting low-strength diseases as children when their immune systems are “being trained” to fight it off is likely going to cause issues in the future, and to solve a relatively small problem anyways (not many kids are hospitalized or die from other pathogens, and there isn’t any good evidence that the long-term effects of diseases on children cause fitness or intelligence loss in the general population). Not to mention, masks are a major cost. Would you ask adults to wear masks in the workplace permanently? Obviously you wouldn’t because that would cause riots. Requiring masks in schools for essentially tiny risks is significantly more overbearing and inconveniencing than, for example, requiring seatbelts, and yet it would likely save far fewer lives in the long run.
So forcing kids to mask permanently has:
Relatively tiny short-term effects, because not that many kids are dying of infectious diseases anyways;
Unknown long-term effects, because we really have no idea which way the fitness advantage is going and it may well be that minor infectious diseases as children are a positive thing;
An inconvenience ranging from minor to major for literally 56.4 million public and private school students, for 6-8 hours a day, or something like 143 billion person-hours per year.
Given that we are exposed to a lot more pathogens than were 99%+ of humans who have ever existed, the hygiene hypothesis doesn’t make theoretical sense. I can accept that if you are going to be exposed to a lot of pathogens as an adult you might be better off being exposed to them as a kid, but it seems that you would be better off if you are never exposed to them.
What do you mean and how do you know it? I’m guessing that you mean that density causes exposure to microorganisms adapted to humans. But we’re probably a lot less exposed to random microorganisms from eating dirt (though it’s not clear they should be called “pathogens”).
The hygiene hypothesis of allergy is speculative, but here’s a concrete, widely accepted claim: before 1900, infants contracted polio and had very mild cases. After 1900, they contracted it at a later age and had bad cases. This suggests increased hygiene at the same time of increasing density, apart from the question of whether hygiene is good or bad at the current margin.
Yes population density, international travel combined with the huge human population, and also the way do and have raised farm animals.
I would expect the effect on health (in either direction) to be dwarved by stuff like: detrimental effects on understanding people (even as an adult I struggle quite a bit to communicate when both sides wear masks), especially if your teacher is masked, or if you’re learning English as a foreign language; detrimental effects on socializing (humans have various instincts for reading facial expressions which have not evolved to take masks into account); etc.
Do you have evidence that masks are effective against any other common diseases?
Common sense implies that they must be at least partially effective at reducing transmission of various diseases, in the same way that wearing gloves does (i.e. a barrier is created which partially blocks movement of potentially harmful particles).
Common sense also implies that masks will inevitably get dirty and will harbor pathogenic bacteria in a warm moist place contaminated with food and in close proximity to child’s face. Covid aside, this seems like a net negative from common sense perspective.
Presumably this is why surgeons wear them and why even before COVID it was common for sick people in Asia to wear them. Also premature births went down during lockdown perhaps because of a reduce spread of whatever pathogens contribute to premature births
Surgeons are breathing in close proximity to open wounds
Sick kids should not be in school, masks or not.
Do you have any evidence that healthy kids who show no symptoms are a significant risk of spreading common diseases other than covid asymptomatically.
“Sick kids should not be in school, masks or not. ” People should not be committing crime therefore we should not take costly preventive measures against crime.
We suffer from a lot of diseases that seemed not to effect hunter-gatherers living in their traditional environment, and we are exposed to lots more pathogens, and it’s possible indeed even likely that these pathogens are inflicting significant damage on us. What if, and this is just a wild guess, 20% of cancers, heart diseases, obesity and mental illnesses were caused by pathogens and the average adult living in a rich country has lost 5 IQ points because of pathogens? Common physical illnesses and mental illnesses not caused by pathogens or physical injury and striking people before old age are weird from an evolutionary viewpoint.
Living in cities is weird from evolutionary viewpoint.
What pathogens will be slowed by masks? How do we balance that with the inevitable reality that masks will get moist and dirty and harbor pathogenic microorganisms in close proximity with children’s faces? Do you have any studies that masks help more than hurt with any pathogen besides covid.
I don’t have any studies, but given that masks were in widespread usage by medical personal and in Asia before COVID my strong prior is that they significantly reduce the spread of some pathogens. I’m not claiming that kids should wear masks, I’m claiming that there is a lot we don’t know about masks and the harm pathogens inflict on kids and it is possible that if we knew more many reasonable people would want kids to wear masks while in school.
Medical personnel work in close proximity to obviously sick patients and particularly surgeons work close to open wounds. None of the medical professionals are children, they are trained to use their PPE and take care of it. Mask use in Asia may have more to do with protection from particular air pollution. There is no evidence that people in Asia are less susceptible to pathogens.
Pre-COVID, Asian students in my classes sometimes wore masks, presumably when they were sick and didn’t want to spread infection. We could train kids to use masks, it’s not that complicated. “No evidence” means we should generate evidence because of the massive amount of harm that pathogens cause, probably more than its generally realized because of their possible role in causing some cancers and lower some IQ scores.
During the pandemic, RSV and influenza (but little else) have been driven nearly to zero. They must be transmitted in the same ways as covid. It’s not clear how much of this is masks and how much is other interventions, but it’s not clear for covid, either.
We used to believe that for influenza handwashing and avoiding hand contact with mucous membranes is much more important than for covid. Are we updating on this?
I think that “we” believing is a category error. I think that even authorities “believing” is a category error. People did experiments to prove that hand sanitizer helped against the flu. They didn’t update on these experiments because they weren’t experiments to learn, but to prove what they wanted.