Violet Affleck and mask mandates

[aold]

AIBU think that this shouldn’t be encouraged? Violet Affleck advocating for mask mandates. Daughter of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck. Speaking about the importance of masks. Says we should still be wearing them to curb the spread of Covid 19.
Shouldn’t a young privileged woman be enjoying her youth? Is there a reason for fit healthy people like her to still walk around in masks?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-15127909/violet-affleck-mask-mandates-long-covid-ben-jennifer-garner.html

Violet was introduced to the panel as "a youth advocate, [the] voice of gen Z, [a] climate champion and [a] clean indoor air advocate".

Maybe it’s the post Greta Thunberg world we live in, just allowing unqualified but passionate youths in to talk to them. I’m sure MN could field an army of passionate if rather unknowledgeable people to talk on a variety of topics. We used to have someone who used to pop up regularly to post very passionately about prions. We could send her first. 👍

I remember how the ppl who were exempt were treated.

No.

I'm torn. I despise mask mandates. On the other hand, it is nice to see a celebrity offspring interested in something other than modelling or acting (poorly) I hope she will learn more as she grows up, and realises that authoritarianism isn't the answer.

So those who are advocating these masks. Are you also for the facial recognition that more and more shops are using? Sainsburys are currently trialling it in London and Bath and if its successful will be rolling it out to other stores.

When the generation who are now children grow up, they're not necessarily all going to feel particularly warmly towards the generation who decided that covid was too depressing, boring and expensive to do anything about, so those children all had multiple covid infections before they even left school. They'll know there were plenty of mitigations other than masks that could have been tried, and that governments didn't even try.

I have no idea how university works (as i never went) and even less knowledge of the American university system so I can't really say if she is "qualified" enough to speak but I have seen occasions where university students give speeches or presentations before.
I doubt Violet Affleck is the first Yale student to speak at the UN or other similar organisations.

It depends. There are probably alot more cases now than there were at some points in 2020 or 2021. I would have more faith in my doctor not having covid whilst treating my newborn earlier in the pandemic than I would do now.

Plenty of celebs' children are doing worthwhile things, we just don't hear about them, because they are doing rather than talking.

Bruce Springsteen's son is a firefighter. Willem Dafoe's son is an environmental researcher. Anna Wintour's son is a doctor. Jamie Oliver's daughter is a student nurse. Rowan Atkinson's son is in the army. Gordon Ramsay's daughter is a police officer and his son is a royal marine.

There must be loads more. They just aren't making a big song and dance about it, which is the point.

Sorry, I meant officially, like WHO.

Still no.

You're right, and to be clear I dislike Violet's stance on this. I'd still take her over the likes of the Kardashians or Brooklyn Beckham or even Kaia Gerber.

Why? According to who? There may be differences between countries (I’m in the U.K. and UKHSA say we are still in a pandemic).

Well the characteristic of a pandemic is that it is defined globally, as opposed to locally. So it doesn't make sense for a country to use its own definition.

The WHO confirmed that we are no longer in a state of emergency more than two years ago. I'm not sure announcing the official end of a pandemic is something they do.

When they stated that, they said we are still in a pandemic though.

OFFS we aren't still in a pandemic!

My NHS building currently doesn't have working heating - I'd prioritise that right now rather than a fancy air filter.

As for mask mandates and the "everyone can wear them... woo anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers" shite. 2020 was that way <---

I still cannot wear a mask for more than about 30 minutes and I cannot function effectively while wearing one. That's despite trying to the point of nearly passing out in Tesco, nearly clawing the skin off my face trying to get through a meeting in school and having to push that far into time tolerating one so I could actually keep some semblance of my career. I'm autistic, it's a huge huge huge sensory trigger for me and I can't even tolerate a corner of the duvet coming up near my mouth overnight. I can push through and last about 30 minutes - but I'll be in fight or flight mode most of the day and it'll burn me out for a good few days if I have to do it.

I almost broke myself trying to appease the pro-mask brigade on here. I pushed and pushed because they insisted I just wasn't trying hard enough, then I avoided going out because even if I was unable to wear them - there was so much public hate out there I was too scared to... then I resorted to wearing a lanyard - I'm incredibly chilled out about being autistic - but having to wear a lanyard basically declaring that so I could buy spuds in Tesco... and the assumptions I was a UKIP loving, Trump shagging Gammon... yeah...

As someone who believes in freedom and liberty, Violet Affleck can wear whatever she wants as far as I’m concerned.

I don’t agree with her however that masks should be mandated, as that would not be a proportionate measure.

I am also a bit perplexed as to how a 19 year old undergraduate student has been given a platform to spout this opinion at the United Nations.

What was really disgusting was how the easiest targets were the subject of shaming. There were a lot of posts on here, twitter etc from people pleased with themselves because they'd given some form of tut or dirty look to an unmasked person. There's no way they were doing it to anyone who they were scared was going to go on the offensive back.

When the generation who are now children grow up, they're not necessarily all going to feel particularly warmly towards the generation who decided that covid was too depressing, boring and expensive to do anything about ...

I don't know if it passed you by, @Setenv, but regardless of individual views rather a lot was "done about it", even at the expense of the long term consequences

OK, WHO say we are. AliceMaforethought says we are not. Got it.

Yes but I don't think they announce the end officially.

Does the UN have health anxiety? From August 2020:

”We have increased the rating of the filters in the HQ campus systems. All HQ campus systems are now installed with MERV 10 pre-filters and MERV 14 main filters. The filters of the HVAC systems of the leased annex have also been upgraded to the maximum MERV ratings that each system is capable of handling. We have taken the approach of "flushing" 100% of outside air to occupied spaces for 30-minute periods multiple times a day. The run times for each unit are staggered so as not to cause spikes in overall energy demand.”

Source: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/highlight/2020-08-12.html

19% of Yale students come from the richest 1% of americans

www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/yale-university

We did something about it in the short term, and since then we've stopped, so we are now doing precisely zero to prevent the long-term consequences of repeated covid infections, in children or in anyone else. Zero.

We've put all our eggs in the basket of thinking kids having lots of covid infections won't have any long-term consequences. What if we're wrong? The research into the cognitive effects alone should be causing concern.

Ventilation in summer and HEPA filters in winter in classrooms could have been being worked on for the last five years and we'd now be in a much better position, even if progress was slow because of funds and even if the results weren't perfect. If clean air is good enough for the Houses of Parliament, why not for children?