No more masks in classrooms - hurray!

[TeddingtonTrashbag]

Hurray!
I am a secondary teacher and just hope it really happens.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/05/06/exclusive-end-masks-classroom-boris-johnson-defies-unions/

instead of comparing the mask wearing techniques of secondary schools to healthcare professionals perhaps it would be more appropriate to compare with people on public transport and visiting supermarkets and other retail venues. I don't think school children are any worse than the general public in terms of mask wearing yet the government has no immediate plans to end this requirement. Why is this?

palacegirl77

Yup, Buzzwords.

At least with the copy and paste from the BMJ you are trying to make an argument

@Toomanymuslins

I think unfortunately most countries had school closures.

In any case, it’s not about what was but what is. Masks were necessary. With a robust vaccination programme hopefully not now.

Very few children will have lost a parent to covid, given the average ages of death. But in any event, no one is denying the awfulness of the pandemic. It is just that some environments aren’t suited to masks. The classroom is one of them, IMO.

I would agree with this point of view, once more of the population had been vaccinated, including, ideally, CV children. But not now.

I think we need to be somewhere beyond 'hopefully' before we take away the limited mitigations in schools, especially given the evidence of December.

It's too early, and SAGE agrees.

I might also agree with dispensing with masks if there was distancing, excellent ventilation and smaller class sizes (though probably only in areas where rates were low - can't remember what most scientists saying but I think it's around lower than 25 per 100k - and a lot of the country is still over that). But it's clear that those other mitigations aren't on the table for schools, so masks are one of only a very few mitigations available - far short of the 'swiss cheese' model that's really needed.

And wearing a mask isn't a big deal for most. Also exemptions are there for those who can't.

I don't get the opposition. You'd think having lived through November and December people would be willing to take any minor inconvenience it took to avoid a repeat.

@noblegiraffe

I haven't seen many nurses wearing Spiderman masks

Do you think that secondary school kids are?

Yes I do. Minions. Mickey mouse. Skeleton faces. Take your pick. My daughter's has hamsters with karaoke microphones on. Have a little Google, do you good!

I'm saying one side because I'm replying to someone who is all Pro masks! My daughter wears one. It has hamsters singing on. She likes the fact it matches her trainers. There - positive?

Google? I work in a secondary school. Over a thousand kids and not one Spider-Man one. It’d be social death.

@mrshoho

instead of comparing the mask wearing techniques of secondary schools to healthcare professionals perhaps it would be more appropriate to compare with people on public transport and visiting supermarkets and other retail venues. I don't think school children are any worse than the general public in terms of mask wearing yet the government has no immediate plans to end this requirement. Why is this?

Because - and maybe I'm generalising here - it takes me around half an hour to do a food shop. My daughter wears hers for 6 hours.

@FrippEnos

palacegirl77

Yup, Buzzwords.

At least with the copy and paste from the BMJ you are trying to make an argument

Well thank you for proof reading my posts and allowing me to write on your board. (Boris..is that you?)

@palacegirl77

Can you give a reference to the text you quote? Is it a peer reviewed paper or an opinion piece? What's the date?

If wearing masks caused a risk of really high viral dose from whatever you're already infected with doctors wouldn't be able to wear them, it'd be a health and safety risk, surely? They'd be getting ill frequently when having to do surgeries hours and hours long?

Early on, several scientists were dubious about the benefits of masks given that people can't be guaranteed to use them properly, and because there was an unproven assertion wearing them might make people less cautious and less likely to social distance. (Not an issue in crowded classrooms - if my Dd's is anything to go by they'd have to be sitting on top of each other to get any closer) Early on, opinion in the scientific community was much more divided.

Since then, more evidence has been accumulated via both experimentation (e.g. hamsters in masked and non masked enclosures - showed that fewer of the hamsters in the enclosure with a mask got ill and if they did get ill, it was less severe) and the 'real world' experiment of the pandemic (e.g statistical analysis of countries which adopted mask wearing early vs those who didn't), and now the absolute weight of scientific opinion is that masks work. They're not 100%, nothing is of course, not even vaccination. But they do have a significant beneficial impact.

medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-hamster-masks-coronavirus-scientists.html

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200612172200.htm

@noblegiraffe

Google? I work in a secondary school. Over a thousand kids and not one Spider-Man one. It’d be social death.

Just a guess but your secondary school has a strict uniform code? My daughter's is one of the only secondaries that has no uniform - so yes we see all sorts. They actively try to out geek each other. My daughter's friend wears a hello kitty one. Anyway, the point is (as well you know) they're not hospital grade masks.

[quote IloveJKRowling]@palacegirl77

Can you give a reference to the text you quote? Is it a peer reviewed paper or an opinion piece? What's the date?

If wearing masks caused a risk of really high viral dose from whatever you're already infected with doctors wouldn't be able to wear them, it'd be a health and safety risk, surely? They'd be getting ill frequently when having to do surgeries hours and hours long?

Early on, several scientists were dubious about the benefits of masks given that people can't be guaranteed to use them properly, and because there was an unproven assertion wearing them might make people less cautious and less likely to social distance. (Not an issue in crowded classrooms - if my Dd's is anything to go by they'd have to be sitting on top of each other to get any closer) Early on, opinion in the scientific community was much more divided.

Since then, more evidence has been accumulated via both experimentation (e.g. hamsters in masked and non masked enclosures - showed that fewer of the hamsters in the enclosure with a mask got ill and if they did get ill, it was less severe) and the 'real world' experiment of the pandemic (e.g statistical analysis of countries which adopted mask wearing early vs those who didn't), and now the absolute weight of scientific opinion is that masks work. They're not 100%, nothing is of course, not even vaccination. But they do have a significant beneficial impact.

medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-hamster-masks-coronavirus-scientists.html

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200612172200.htm[/quote]
I'm not even going to argue with someone using experiments on HAMSTERS as evidence for use on children! Jeez.

Masks were the only way I could tell the children in my classes apart in September! Boy with LFC mask, girl with unicorn mask ...

Virtually every drug your child takes will have been tested on some form of rodent.

Do you think it would be ethical to test on actual humans?

@IloveJKRowling

Virtually every drug your child takes will have been tested on some form of rodent.

Do you think it would be ethical to test on actual humans?

I'd love to see a hamster wearing a mask. Also as hamsters kill each other and need to be solitary they're hardly the best animal to use in a social distancing study! That's made me laugh though so thank you!

I'm not even going to argue with someone using experiments on HAMSTERS as evidence for use on children! Jeez.

Good, because you’d lose.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6781508/

The hamsters didn't wear masks - Jesus wept. Read the study.

@Viciouslybashed

How stupid. Masks should stay for now to ensure we don't all have outbreaks. Can't be bothered to read the bullshit justification.

Yes you're right. We should all wear masks forever despite the fact nobody is dying and cases are next to nothing.

Ridiculous.

This thread is making me think we need more science teachers.

If there is a strict uniform policy why can't n95 masks be part of it?
It seems like there are a lot of excuses. As if I was talking to my teen boy who doesn't want to do his hw.

Masks should stay for now to ensure we don't all have outbreaks.

Response Yes you're right. We should all wear masks forever

Reading comprehension levels lacking.

@IloveJKRowling

The hamsters didn't wear masks - Jesus wept. Read the study.

No kidding they didn't

www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/156628/cloth-mouth-masks-from-avrox-luxembourg-belgium-government-distributed-free-to-pharmacies-may-be-toxic/

Anyway, the point is (as well you know) they're not hospital grade masks.

So? I’ve been in plenty of medical situations recently including hospital where medical practitioners were not in hospital grade masks.

Yes you're right. We should all wear masks forever despite the fact nobody is dying and cases are next to nothing.

Cases are low due to lockdown. We are about to go through a REALLY significant relaxing of lockdown. Stopping mask wearing in a crowded environment where we KNOW transmission was high before lockdown seems premature - release lockdown first, then stop mask wearing in schools as a separate process, to see the imact of each separatey.

Cases are going to go up over the coming weeks, as lockdown eases. Vaccinations will be continuing at the same time. Anything that keeps the rate of rise down while those vaccinations continue - especially something as minimally invasive as wearing a mask in a crowded area where everyone is now habituated to doing so and exemptions are allowed - is surely sensible?

Allowing rates to rise REALLY high, even when m,any are vaccinated, is stupid. A percentage of the vaccinated WILL still catch the disease. The more infected people there are, the more of these 'not effectively immune even though vaccinated' people will catch the infection.

It's common sense.

@cantkeepawayforever
relying on common sense on MN forums is like chasing unicorns.