Late 2019 you go to a school board meeting. Tell them you think everyone in the school - students, teachers, visitors, administrators - should be forced to wear a hospital-style mask on their face, all day every day. The reason is this might prevent some cases of the flu.
Of course they would think you were crazy. If required to take a position, every single school board member regardless of ideology would oppose it. In fact the more "progressive" ones might oppose it more thoroughly, because they would think about the impact on special needs kids and so on.
The key point is that the opposition would not stem, mainly, from the school board's beliefs in the efficacy of masks. Presumably they would have no idea whether it would "work" or not. Who would even care, whether it "worked?"
Rather they would focus on how utterly absurb the idea is, that learning or even just living could take place in with everyone's faces covered for 8 hours a day. The list of problems with this is almost as endless as it is obvious.
Yet somehow, the idea that masking is a "zero-cost" intervention, hardly even worth measuing the downsides, became a pillar of covid orthodoxy for the last 3 years. Of all the gaslighting, this was some of the most impressive.
Exactly. The idea that it's harmless to mask children and their teachers for 8 hours/day every day for months/years is patently absurd. It's absolutely incredible that serious people were able to convince themselves and others that this is a harmless intervention. A study that required masking young children at school all day likely couldn't even get approved pre-Covid, on ethical grounds.
Outstanding review of unbiased facts, Kelley. Shows the honest work a person without an agenda can accomplish. Thanks for documenting the history of what happened, so necessary.
Thank you. After a lot of confusion and debate over the weekend, I thought it would be helpful to sort of pull together what we know about how mask recommendations came to be, and where we go from here.
Thanks Kelly Great work. I live in Canada. Our Covid/mask policies have been as bad as any "red" state. And many people are still masking. the difference between the US and Canada is that in Canada there really is very little push back or debate on these policies. I have to look to US and British journalists and scientists for a reasoned discussion.
My husband is Canadian, and we have family and friends in the Toronto area. It's really crazy what's happened in Canada. It's been even more unhinged than the US in many ways. (And yet you guys still managed to drop the vax requirement for visitors before us!)
crazy isn't the half of it! Most of my friends are in the crazy category. Some were shocked we flew without masks! Shocked that we questioned the Canadian Public Health narrative. And I could go on. Shocked that once we were vaccinated in May 2021 we decided to live our lives as normally as possible. We are both 68 and have lived through two other pandemics without even knowing! Ironically my husband and I haven't gotten Covid (to our knowledge) despite being "reckless". Reading and seeing you and others like Vinay Prasad and Anish Koka in the US and Carl Heneghan, Tom Jefferson, Sunetra Gupta and Toby Green in the UK has helped me to keep my sanity over the past three years. Thank you again.
My favorite thought exercise:
Late 2019 you go to a school board meeting. Tell them you think everyone in the school - students, teachers, visitors, administrators - should be forced to wear a hospital-style mask on their face, all day every day. The reason is this might prevent some cases of the flu.
Of course they would think you were crazy. If required to take a position, every single school board member regardless of ideology would oppose it. In fact the more "progressive" ones might oppose it more thoroughly, because they would think about the impact on special needs kids and so on.
The key point is that the opposition would not stem, mainly, from the school board's beliefs in the efficacy of masks. Presumably they would have no idea whether it would "work" or not. Who would even care, whether it "worked?"
Rather they would focus on how utterly absurb the idea is, that learning or even just living could take place in with everyone's faces covered for 8 hours a day. The list of problems with this is almost as endless as it is obvious.
Yet somehow, the idea that masking is a "zero-cost" intervention, hardly even worth measuing the downsides, became a pillar of covid orthodoxy for the last 3 years. Of all the gaslighting, this was some of the most impressive.
Exactly. The idea that it's harmless to mask children and their teachers for 8 hours/day every day for months/years is patently absurd. It's absolutely incredible that serious people were able to convince themselves and others that this is a harmless intervention. A study that required masking young children at school all day likely couldn't even get approved pre-Covid, on ethical grounds.
Outstanding review of unbiased facts, Kelley. Shows the honest work a person without an agenda can accomplish. Thanks for documenting the history of what happened, so necessary.
Thank you. After a lot of confusion and debate over the weekend, I thought it would be helpful to sort of pull together what we know about how mask recommendations came to be, and where we go from here.
Thanks Kelly Great work. I live in Canada. Our Covid/mask policies have been as bad as any "red" state. And many people are still masking. the difference between the US and Canada is that in Canada there really is very little push back or debate on these policies. I have to look to US and British journalists and scientists for a reasoned discussion.
My husband is Canadian, and we have family and friends in the Toronto area. It's really crazy what's happened in Canada. It's been even more unhinged than the US in many ways. (And yet you guys still managed to drop the vax requirement for visitors before us!)
crazy isn't the half of it! Most of my friends are in the crazy category. Some were shocked we flew without masks! Shocked that we questioned the Canadian Public Health narrative. And I could go on. Shocked that once we were vaccinated in May 2021 we decided to live our lives as normally as possible. We are both 68 and have lived through two other pandemics without even knowing! Ironically my husband and I haven't gotten Covid (to our knowledge) despite being "reckless". Reading and seeing you and others like Vinay Prasad and Anish Koka in the US and Carl Heneghan, Tom Jefferson, Sunetra Gupta and Toby Green in the UK has helped me to keep my sanity over the past three years. Thank you again.