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Masking children: a minor bump in development?

#1
C C Offline
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...de/619952/

EXCERPTS (Vinay Prasad): Scientists have an obligation to strive for honesty. And on the question of whether kids should wear masks in schools—particularly preschools and elementary schools—here is what I conclude: The potential educational harms of mandatory-masking policies are much more firmly established, at least at this point, than their possible benefits in stopping the spread of COVID-19 in schools.

To justify continued masking of schoolkids—with no end date in sight—we have to prove that masks benefit kids, and at what ages. States and communities that are considering masking policies just to be safe should recognize that being overly cautious has a cost, while the benefits are uncertain.

[...] No scientific consensus exists about the wisdom of mandatory-masking rules for schoolchildren. The World Health Organization, which recommends that children 12 and older wear masks under the same circumstances that adults do, specifically advises against masking kids age 5 and younger. Many European nations have been taking the agency’s advice. The United Kingdom has emphasized rapid testing instead of masking and has not required elementary-school students or their teachers to wear a face covering.

In the United States, though, current CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines call for kids age 2 and up to wear a mask in indoor school or day-care settings; the CDC specifically makes exceptions for napping and eating. (Masking very young children during sleep is inadvisable because of the risk of suffocation.) In other words, the prevailing wisdom in the U.S. calls for 2-to-4-year-olds to wear masks in day care for six or more hours while they are awake, but go unmasked while sleeping side by side in the same room. Shielding children from all coronavirus exposure is difficult for another practical reason: Little kids fidget with their masks.

A health recommendation that takes little account of how human beings act and what they need is unlikely to be successful. For instance, a diet that told you to eat just two carrots a day would theoretically result in dramatic weight loss. In practice, such a regimen could starve you of nutrients that your body requires. Moreover, overly strict diets often result in no weight loss at all, because nobody can stick to them. Similarly, mask mandates can be challenging for little children to follow and deprive them of stimuli they need.

In addition to recommending masks for young kids, CDC guidelines also urge masks for most vaccinated caregivers who work in infant day-care centers. This advice also deviates from standard practice in other nations, including the U.K. Many studies support the importance of babies seeing caregivers’ faces, and prior to the arrival of COVID-19, many American professional organizations, including the AAP, strongly agreed.

At least some fears about masking are exaggerated. [...] The benefits of mask requirements in schools might seem self-evident—they have to help contain the coronavirus, right?—but that may not be so...

[...] Before limiting the amount of face-to-face human contact that children experience during many of their waking hours, policy makers should be acutely aware of what children could lose... (How wearing face masks can impact children’s ability to read emotions)

[...] In the absence of systematic research on the costs and benefits of mask requirements for kids, the issue has been transformed into a right-left political battle. ... Unfortunately, scientists have failed to conduct the kind of randomized trials that can provide more reliable answers. Here schools, counties, or districts would be assigned a mandatory or optional masking policy, and researchers could simply track their experience to determine which schools had more coronavirus spread. Kids wouldn’t be banned or prohibited from wearing masks, but rather the policy of making all kids wear masks would be rigorously tested.

In mid-March 2020, few could argue against erring on the side of caution. But nearly 18 months later, we owe it to children and their parents to answer the question properly: Do the benefits of masking kids in school outweigh the downsides? The honest answer in 2021 remains that we don’t know for sure... (MORE - missing details)

RELATED (scivillage): Gen Z Is developing unexplained tics after going online, and doctors are concerned
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Cynical Sindee: What's hilarious is that a random FAQs may tell you: "According to experts, there’s no evidence that face masks have a negative impact on your child’s mental and psychological well-being..."

But that's because, as the above points out, there's a dearth of studies for this kind of months and years long magnitude of mask wearing to provide evidence in that context. Absence of data is treated as a positive prescription.

It's not unlike the institutional judgement and factoid that declares systematic bigotry is ubiquitous in every and nook and cranny of the 21st century. That uncritically treats anecdotes, vignettes. witticisms, media stories, ideology, outrage/shaming incidents, and sloppy local and federal investigation tactics as scientific. Additionally, such motivated assessment agendas and sting ops enter with a preference for only one conclusion, no optional interpretations and hypotheses.

This is symptomatic of the grievance mindset of post-colonial offshoots and the anti-Western orientation of contemporary leftism. Where the ultimate destination down the road is a return to regional mythical beliefs and dogmas influencing policy, a lack of skeptical methodology, return to intermittent irrational thinking and the occasionally barbaric customs of pre-modern cultures (and their own historic forms of oppression).

Richard Rorty: "... no area of culture, and no period of history gets reality more right than any other."
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#2
Syne Offline
Easy to find no evidence if you never look for any.
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