Some people can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that children are at about the same risk with COVID-19 as with influenza. Maybe it's all the deniers going "it's just a flu!" all along? Builds up a reflexive instinct to reject that sort of claim -- even this article makes the comparison to influenza. Not sure it's helping, even if it's true.
The same debate was had here in Canada. If you actually go read the experts, they all have qualms about requiring masks for very young children. Uncomfortable, social development, etc. One example that registered personally for me, as someone with a hearing loss. For children who rely heavily on lipreading, inadequate in-person socialization without masks during the formative period may interfere with acquiring language, and that sort of stimulus poverty cannot be reversed later. This is unfortunately not a zero-cost policy.
The expert panel set to the question in Ontario with re-opening schools concluded parents and schools should not require young children to wear masks, particularly if they strongly dislike them. Even when things got a lot worse and much stricter criteria was recommended in January, the advice is still to encourage masks if tolerable to the child, but... yes. Otherwise you should let kindergarteners and those younger run around without social distancing.
Or in other words: isolate the cohort itself, not the members of the cohort from each other. We've done really badly with this in general, though. With overnight summer camp it is so easy, too, like the article says. If it's at least a week, and no one else is admitted after the start, you can just treat time at camp as an isolation period.
I suspect the issue here is that the public health lever-pulling expert class has decided on an authoritarian strategy and maskless children would disrupt the facade of absolute conformity.
You see people outright admitting this when they vaccinate and are afraid to unmask even though science would suggest otherwise - they want to get rid of the perception of individual autonomy.
But on the topic of children masking: it's clear that the panic-ridden doomsday people have continuously downplayed or flat-out not recognized the non-linear detrimental effects of disrupting normal education and socialization of children.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 12.8 ms ] threadThe same debate was had here in Canada. If you actually go read the experts, they all have qualms about requiring masks for very young children. Uncomfortable, social development, etc. One example that registered personally for me, as someone with a hearing loss. For children who rely heavily on lipreading, inadequate in-person socialization without masks during the formative period may interfere with acquiring language, and that sort of stimulus poverty cannot be reversed later. This is unfortunately not a zero-cost policy.
The expert panel set to the question in Ontario with re-opening schools concluded parents and schools should not require young children to wear masks, particularly if they strongly dislike them. Even when things got a lot worse and much stricter criteria was recommended in January, the advice is still to encourage masks if tolerable to the child, but... yes. Otherwise you should let kindergarteners and those younger run around without social distancing.
Or in other words: isolate the cohort itself, not the members of the cohort from each other. We've done really badly with this in general, though. With overnight summer camp it is so easy, too, like the article says. If it's at least a week, and no one else is admitted after the start, you can just treat time at camp as an isolation period.
You see people outright admitting this when they vaccinate and are afraid to unmask even though science would suggest otherwise - they want to get rid of the perception of individual autonomy.
But on the topic of children masking: it's clear that the panic-ridden doomsday people have continuously downplayed or flat-out not recognized the non-linear detrimental effects of disrupting normal education and socialization of children.