Masks Don't Work In Schools (With Data To Prove It)

So, I chose this forum because, as we all know, how government agencies are opting to react to the pandemic is pretty much based in politics, not science. It's madness, I tell ya! MADNESS!!!

Okay, many of us have suspected that, with the low infection and transmission rates of COVID-19 amongst young people, masking children in school settings was a rather unnecessary endeavor and brought with the practice more harm than good. It was a suspicion, as I hadn't really seen any direct evidence breakdown in a statistical format that was easily digested AND compared schools who took precautions versus those who did not.

Hello today...thank you for providing me this gift. Here, we have an interactive dashboard created and maintained by (as listed on their website): AASA, The School Superintendents Association; the National Association of Secondary School Principals; the National Association of Elementary School Principals; Qualtrics; Brown University Professor of Economics Emily Oster. This appears pretty legit to me, so let's talk about the results.

In every single comparison made that I looked at, the situations where the LEAST AMOUNT of precautions were taken had the LOWEST AMOUNT of case rates. Let's read that again: the lower the amount of precautions taken, the lower the COVID-19 case rate in both students and staff.

In each metric, they compare data from schools in three different scenarios: Low/Moderate Community Transmission; Substantial Community Transmission, and; High Community Transmission. Since most of the respondents were in the High Community Transmission areas, those are the examples that I will show below. All case rates are per 100,000 people and for grades K-12.

STUDENT MASKING

No Masks Required: 19 for students, 18 for staff
Masks Required: 25 for students, 32 for staff



STUDENT DISTANCING

No Distancing Required: 15 for students, 26 for staff
3 Feet Required: 19 for students, 32 for staff
6 Feet Required: 26 for students, 30 for staff



VENTILATION IMPROVEMENTS

No Increased Ventilation: 21 for students, 27 for staff
Increased Ventilation: 25 for students, 31 for staff



IN-PERSON STUDENT DENSITY

Fully Remote: (no student data), 43 for staff
Density less than 60%: 25 for students, 31 for staff
Density 60-90%: 22 for students, 36 for staff
Density more than 90%: 15 for students, 38 for staff



It's a very interesting site, and you can change the filters, see the raw data, it links to the raw data sources, has all of the state data broken down in two-week totals, etc.

Give it a look and come to your own conclusions, but I know what my conclusions are, and they haven't changed my opinion one bit and have, in fact, bolstered it.

Unmask our kids!

And before anyone makes the point, I fully comprehend the reality that correlation doesn't equal causation, and that it lacks information on how many students in each school or grade had immunity and yada yada yada, I'm just trying to share the raw numbers that seem to indicate that, at the very least, all of these COVID protocols don't seem to be doing much, and on the contrary, they seem to be making things 'not gooder.'

Often times, micromanaging creates bigger problems with stronger effects 😃

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Maybe during the Spanish flu no one should have worn a mask, or someone treating Ebola, or even doing a surgery.
God man and you didn't even provide a source.
Get your crap together and fix your argument even though it is proven to be wrong through many years in our history.
Your personal preference and "facts" you choose to use can not change history.

a reply to: xuenchen

Who is micromanaging here. The US government that has not made the vaccine mandatory (yet) or those trying to make others believe unsourced info?

a reply to: SlapMonkey

I'm convinced!! Charts and graphs from the internet proof.

Masking kids is idiotic, damages their development, it impacts a positive learning environment, and it’s really unnecessary. Plus they’re wearing loose fitting cloth masks most of the time, pretty useless if you ask me.

We’ve had a few fights regarding my son who has epilepsy and autism. He has an IEP, a special education program, that says no mask but we will try. One of his bus drivers kept kicking him off the bus and was giving his caregivers and us a major issue about it and “doing their job.” Well, they are not a bus driver anymore since the ADA is pretty clear.

Even with masks, they’ve brought home corona, been quarantined for exposure, brought home the flu, brought home other viral infections. It’s pointless with kids. Teachers are vaccinated, kids don't get it bad and have the immune response to beat it, just get rid of masks in schools. It's making them depressed and giving them anxiety.

originally posted by: xuenchen
Often times, micromanaging creates bigger problems with stronger effects 😃

Liberals don't understand this point and it is also why government initiatives often fail over just letting people operate in their own best interest. Central planning almost always fails and creates inefficiencies.

originally posted by: Allaroundyou
a reply to: xuenchen

Who is micromanaging here. The US government that has not made the vaccine mandatory (yet) or those trying to make others believe unsourced info?

Health bureaucrats at national and local level....teachers unions.

I don't know what you call it, but demanding people mask up and shutting down businesses is micromanaging.

Who put out that data first?

who took that ball and run with it

SCUM, ideological scum did, that is who

a reply to: SlapMonkey
Of course not.

Did anyone really expect kids to follow the protocol to have masks be effective?

At first I thought you were trying to be funny because of my post last week about people who don't read the whole OP before responding. Apparently you're not trying to be funny, so here we go:

originally posted by: Allaroundyou
Maybe during the Spanish flu no one should have worn a mask, or someone treating Ebola, or even doing a surgery.

Strawman arguments that have nothing to do with what I'm specifically talking about or what the data is addressing. Ignored.

God man and you didn't even provide a source.

First, you don't have to call me "God man," but I appreciate the sentiment. Second, re-read the OP and you'll see that there absolutely is a link to the source. Nevermind, I'll just quote the OP and make you look sillier:

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
Hello today...thank you for providing me this gift. Here, we have an interactive dashboard created and maintained by (as listed on their website): AASA, The School Superintendents Association; the National Association of Secondary School Principals; the National Association of Elementary School Principals; Qualtrics; Brown University Professor of Economics Emily Oster.

See, what you do when a word is blue, is you click on it. It's called a hyperlink. It is used to take the end user to another website where, in this case, the source resides. Have fun with that newfound knowledge!

Get your crap together and fix your argument even though it is proven to be wrong through many years in our history.
Your personal preference and "facts" you choose to use can not change history.

Right.

Thanks for playing.

--God man

originally posted by: xuenchen
Often times, micromanaging creates bigger problems with stronger effects 😃

Sort of like "the unintended consequences of government meddling?"

originally posted by: Allaroundyou
a reply to: xuenchen

Who is micromanaging here. The US government that has not made the vaccine mandatory (yet) or those trying to make others believe unsourced info?

Again with that lie of "unsourced info." Please stop.

-- God man

originally posted by: olaru12
a reply to: SlapMonkey

I'm convinced!! Charts and graphs from the internet proof.

Then go to the site, look at the raw data, inspect the links that take you directly to the state-supplied statistics, inspect that data.

But throwing out the info because you don't like the source is asinine, especially because it might go against your preconceived notions. Logical fallacies are fallacies for a reason...look into that, too.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Look at your source man. Jeez talk about deny ignorance.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
And before anyone makes the point, I fully comprehend the reality that correlation doesn't equal causation, and that it lacks information on how many students in each school or grade had immunity and yada yada yada, I'm just trying to share the raw numbers that seem to indicate that, at the very least, all of these COVID protocols don't seem to be doing much, and on the contrary, they seem to be making things 'not gooder.'

Did you read the bottom part of the report or just look at the charts?

Let me cite it:

However, we would caution against making causal conclusions from the data.

The mitigation practices in the data tend to cluster, making it difficult to attribute differences in infection rates to a single school behavior (i.e., schools may have implemented several mitigation practices simultaneously).

The data didn't contain information about when in the school year this occurred or what order the precautions were taken in or what the situation in the school and outside were like.

In addition, for a behavior such as “student masking”, school-level masking strongly associates with community-level masking. Given that many infections are acquired outside of school, it is difficult in some cases to attribute differences to the behavior of schools versus communities.

In other words, they can mandate masks in school (in Alabama, for instance) but that doesn't protect staff and students from what their family and community are doing.

Also... note that this was Original Flavor Covid and not the new Delta flavor.

So, while interesting, without the additional data (what is happening in the community) it's not clear how to interpret the data.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

obviously this study wasn't inclusive of all the states.

The bi-weekly survey: These data come from schools and districts who responded to survey items related to mitigation behaviors, total student enrollment and in-person student enrollment on at least one COVID-19 School Response Dashboard's biweekly survey. These data represent 49 states and the District of Columbia. Note, however, that some states include data from a single school or district, while other states have much more comprehensive data.

without Alabama, the data is flawed. Or not.

/sarcasm

this is a fantastic thread and one that will be nice to reference when speaking to idiots. Thanks for doing the leg work.
WLYB


eta:
I should have read the whole thread before using what was sarcasm before I found out that people really were that #ing stupid. my bad.

originally posted by: Byrd


Also... note that this was Original Flavor Covid and not the new Delta flavor.

So, while interesting, without the additional data (what is happening in the community) it's not clear how to interpret the data.

could you list the peer reviewed data from last year showing the delta variant? I only ask as you seemed to think it should be included in this.

But without data on Delta, and of course we cannot exclude Epsilon, we cannot make any decisions about opening schools or the world for that matter. In that light, it's best that you and all those who think like you stay indoors "sheltering in place" until we have news that all viruses have been eradicated, like we did with the flu.

I'll be sure to keep you and those like you posted throw-out the year. Stay safe, stay inside, stay alive.