I’m just tired of pearl clutching over maskne and such “risks” while a ton of healthcare workers are dealing with PTSD, anxiety, and depression (including suicidal ideation) from a situation that’s definitely not the flu. But I guess they can continue to just suck it up until someone comes up with the perfect solution.
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I’ll agree some policies had significant negative impacts, such as school closures. And distancing with what’s now known to be aerosol transmission isn’t as safe as originally thought. Not a lot of first hand experience on how to manage a novel, highly infectious virus. But a bunch of people playing this off as the flu or a hoax or spreading misinformation about the vaccine are prolonging this shitstorm.
We’re clearly not going to ever agree with each other on much of this. Enjoy the serene view from your high horse.
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I respect that lone wolf fighter that Marcie has become on here.
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I am sympathetic to that, and I’m sorry for whatever Mrs JFG might be going through. I realize this subject hits home for you.
At the same time, children & teens in many parts of the country have had our lives put on hold; small children had their social/emotional development stunted; have been conditioned to view our peers, ourselves, & others around us as dangerous vectors of disease; have been blamed for “killing grandma” then “killing teachers” despite lack of any evidence; have suffered anxiety, depression, & suicidal ideation in astronomical numbers, all for a disease that for most of us kids is very often indistinguishable from a cold, allergies, or yes, flu.
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I wish a cool pandemic happened when I was in junior high so I could have skipped it. Some kids might very well benefit from being away from their peers at that nasty age.
Why are you pointing out children as being labeled “dangerous vectors of disease” when every human was labeled that, not just kids?
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Excellent point, but I think that label on children has been both less fair (because data still points to children being less efficient vectors of this disease) and more impactful due to teachers unions playing it up to keep schools closed.
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And kids are paying close attention to the news and what teachers unions say or they just know school is closes because there is a virus?
As I said, I would have loved to have just not had to go to junior high. I would have been great. I’m sure there are also kids out there who are fine with virtual school
I’m also not sure how it is psychologically more damaging even if kids are not as likely to be a vector of covid than adults. Both are labeled as a danger regardless. Seems damaging to both if you’re going to claim that label is damaging at all.
Stop pretending you’re a child, you’re a grown ass adult.
ETA, if you’re under 13 you’re violating this site’s terms and conditions by posting.
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What I read from the CDC is that they initially thought it was droplets, but later acknowledged it aerosols could also transmit it, ie both are transmission routes.
I think you can speculate the many situations in public where you might exposed to a higher viral load, more quickly, through droplets than through aerosols from an infected person, and a result, masks in public can still be an important factor in reducing transmission.
If you are sitting indoors for a prolonged period near someone who is infected, it probably doesn’t matter if you are wearing a mask on if you get infected. Perhaps you still receive a smaller viral load through preventing the exposer by droplets.
In any case, you have public health officials that came to near universal agreement that masks help. Just because you are hyper focused on how they can fail does not mean they are worthless.
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I’m not sure I’ve seen that, although it’s possible that I did and dismissed it as nonsense.
Most of what I remember seeing was that masks reduce (not eliminate) the risk of spreading Covid.
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wait. so have adults! why are you just saying that children had their lives put on hold? everyone has, including adults.
it’s part of marcie’s charm imo.
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The effect of emphasizing the EUA status of a vaccine that hundreds of millions have had with no serious effects and emphasizing the mortality rates for younger people while ignoring the broader disease impacts is that people may put themselves at risk of something they don’t fully understand instead of researching this on their own or talking to their doctor (have you done this?) on whether they should get the vaccine.
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Some might be. I am. Others may simply know schools are closed because they might kill their teacher. 
I completely agree. Some kids absolutely need the school environment to thrive. For others, they may do very well with virtual school. (Yet another reason for school choice imo.)
I know one girl who was utterly despondent by May 2020 after just 2 months of zoom school and another girl who still hasn’t been to in-person school since March 2020 & doesn’t seem fazed at all. Tho I fear the latter may have some budding sociopathic tendencies.
I linked the video down-thread.
I also dismiss most of what the CDC Director says as nonsense. 
and i know i might kill someone too. why is this somehow harder on kids? i’m not buying the whole “teachers union” thing. the news says that all humans are a risk, and they actually do say that children are less of a risk despite the schools being closed, so watching the news should make these children realize they likely aren’t murdering granny and their teachers.
You’re right, of course. I think the effects have been more profound on children, but lockdowns have also seriously affected many adults. 2020 mortality included a ton of “deaths of despair” at a range of ages.
I do think that on average, children have paid a bigger price than adults. The loss of social interaction for an extended period of time is even more detrimental to young people than it is to adults, IMO. I was at a six-year-old’s birthday party recently and someone pointed out to me that since kids don’t tend to remember much before the age of three, for the kids at the party Covid restrictions represented nearly half of their lifetime memories. For younger kids that fraction would be even higher. They don’t even really know that this isn’t normal.
They’ve also experienced extremely sub-standard virtual school, which I think harms them far more than adults having a sub-par WFH tech experience. Especially older kids.
And the kids who are missing out on the high school experience: being in activities, hanging out with your friends, going to the arcade or bowling alley or movie theater or mini golf course and just being a kid… that’s something they just can’t get back. And that’s a bigger deal than me not being able to get back the experience of being a 45 year-old in a non-Covid world. Because being 45 wasn’t all that different from being 41 or 42 or 43 or 44 or 46.
But of course we’ve all paid a price. No two ways about that. I doubt anyone would try to suggest otherwise.
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I sometimes wonder what my 5-year old will say when he’s a freshmen in his first week of college and drinking warm Budweiser with his suite-mates and somebody asks “so what was the Covid pandemic like for you?”