Brilliant argument! I am now convinced.
I’ve heard this from several sources, here’s an article. It’s hard to share some of my direct sources, without giving too much info about my personal life.
I don’t think indefinitely, but I certainly think through the year.
My really good friend lives in Ft. Worth area and has said similar things. Where I am at, we couldn’t go inside restaurants until about a month ago. People here are terrified still.
OSHA is still fining businesses for not requiring masks. I know of two coffee shops 200 miles away that received fines.
Edit: I say 200 miles away, because my state is based on metrics per county. These shops are several counties away.
The very first couple lines from the article you posted are:
“An estimated 3 million students in the United States have gone “missing” during the pandemic — not from home, but from virtual school”
That is a horse of a different color compared to this:
I don’t know why you think this, given how many states have already lifted the mandate and the high rate that people are getting the vaccine. I think the mask mandates will be gone completely across the US by August at the latest. I would bet there will be 40 states that have lifted the mandate by June. I can see a few stragglers in very liberal states, but even there will be enormous pressure to lift the mandates given the ubiquity of the vaccine.
And as mnben said… that article doesn’t say what you’re saying. All it says is that a lot of kids don’t show up for their school zoom calls. That absolutely IS a problem, but like… they’re not dead. They’re just not learning as much.
To this end, you would be absolutely correct to assert that the learning gap between poor kids and kids who come from families with money/time/etc will widen, probably dramatically. My son is 6, and I’ve observed this in his class. I’m in a position where I’ve been able to just bring my son with me to my office every day, and his education hasn’t suffered at all. In many ways, it’s been enhanced, because he has an awesome home life and I can listen in on his class, and pick up what he is and isn’t getting, and help him with it.
Meanwhile, there are kids in his class who don’t give a flying fuck what the teacher has to say, they turn off their camera whenever they feel like it, etc. They don’t have a home environment that is conducive to learning, and no teacher physically present to manage their behavior. That’s a problem, to be sure. But if anything, it’s more of a situation where home problems are magnified, rather than created.
Yep, new that statement would be a problem. Not willing to go beyond to state why I believe that’s true. Can’t go into personal reasons or insight about it. Just know, school is the only respite a large percent of kids have from a terrible life.
I certainly hope I’m wrong here.
Worthwhile point and probably very agreeable. There is a significant number of children that have had government intervention in their lives, for safety or to provide basic needs that cannot be located. The article I posted speaks to schools, but that isn’t the only agency that has lost contact.
1 Like
I like your confidence. Post those studies proving that they don’t work to reduce transmission of infectious diseases here, please.
1 Like
This is the argument that I keep hearing and respectfully and can’t support it. “It’s not that big of a deal to wear a mask.” “Don’t you want to do your civic duty? You know, for the children?” What comes next after the authorities condition you to “the new normal?” What is going to be the next thing that “isn’t that big of a deal” that you’ll be required to do in the name of civic duty? Wearing a mask is only the litmus test to see what you will tolerate.
1 Like
This will be me, but I loathe wearing a mask and cannot wait to be rid of them. What I hope will happen is that as states open up vaccination to all adults (happening where I am now) they’ll lift the mandates.
At that point, frankly, I almost relish the thought of the anti-maskers and anti-vaxers enjoying their freedom to be the last demographic to deal with Covid. Of course conversely, there’s the possibility that I and my fellow vaxers will be dropping dead en masse at that point. We’ll see!
I disagree. Selfish is as selfish does. They may not MEAN to make conditions ripe for whooping cough to come back and infect my vaccinated child, but they did. In a hypothetical world where the majority of parents were not willing to take their child to the doctor’s office to be given a potentially dangerous shot, but rather you saw little bodies carried out of houses and into ambulances daily, the people who “love their children too much to risk it!” would line right up for the vaccines, as we largely have in response to Covid. Let’s try a little run of polio, shall we, see how Chad and Ashley feel about bringing their precious Isabella in for the shot. Being unwilling to do it because they risk almost nothing due to the willingness of others to risk is the very definition of selfish. (Sorry, little hot button of mine.)
2 Likes
Agree to disagree. There is no financial incentive to lock countries down and systematically shut down the economy through excessive restrictions on movement.
2 Likes
3 million children missing or dead = more than 10% of the Australian population
Agree to disagree…agreed. This is an interesting conversation though.
There wasn’t a financial incentive last year to artificially lock down entire countries but it yet happened. The only people who are hurting financially are small business owners losing everything because these lock downs.
This has nothing to do with economics and more to do with controlling a populace, restricting movements of people, and orchestrating irrational fear.
1 Like
How would a study like that be designed?
Going to be a hell of a study to show if mask policy is effective on a large scale (as opposed to the physics of what a mask does to stuff flying out your mouth/nose). I haven’t been following along, has anyone tried?
From what I’ve read and heard, the “experts” themselves initially said that masks would be ineffective in “stopping the spread”. Then because 2020 was an election year, they decided to back peddle.
What about the unemployed, or people like restaurant workers who got far fewer hours?
I think on something like this, information can change as we learn more. I think it is expected that positions of experts change as the information evolves. I think this is a more likely explanation than because it was an election year, but YMMV.
1 Like
These people too are hurting because of this. Many are hurting due to irrational lock downs.
It’s possible what you say above is the case. The “experts” could of changed their minds due to new developments based in actual, peer reviewed, scientific studies. However, when there are way too many cases of experts disregarding their own rules when they think no one is looking (“Dr.” Fauci), I would have to rule that these “recommendations” are more political in nature.
All in all, there were way to many things that were convenient happening all at the same time, in the 2020 election year. Who’s to say?
And all of this was handed to Trump on a silver platter. All he had to do was speak a message of unity, listen to the experts, and say we are doing everything we can to speed up recovery, and IMO he would have been a shoe in in 2020. Instead he did the opposite (suggesting blue states shouldn’t get certain medical supplies for example). He was handed an opportunity to gain popularity and he squandered it.
Events like this often increase a president’s popularity. Look at Bush after 9/11. Had Trump taken that approach, he would have sailed to victory.
All of this makes people look more like they’re playing “Gotcha!” with a public health and hygiene issue.
It smacks of a desire to be careless rather than “free”, what ever that means to somebody.
I don’t want to derail the thread too much but I will say this. Nothing! I repeat. Nothing, that Trump could of done would of ever been shown in a positive light by the mainstream media. If he would of “spoke the message of unity” for example, that would of never been backed by any mainstream source in a positive way. Those speaking of “unity” now make me laugh, make me sad, and make me cry all at the same time because they were the one’s throwing the biggest, four-year long, temper-tantrum because Hilary lost an election.
I wouldn’t say Bush was popular after 9/11. I’m old enough to remember the “low approval ratings” he was constantly made fun of about.
He has nearly a vertical line after 9/11! Graph from 538.
In a way, it could be said that those with criticisms are playing “gotcha”. It’s not really that hard though when public health and hygiene officials (who are high profile) aren’t even trying to hide the fact that they don’t believe their own bullshit. It reeks of “rules for thee but not for me.” That’s just my 2-cents though as I’m nothing but a saxophone player.