rojo wrote:
The Border Clash between Co and Utah Xc team was cancelled due to Covid so now the top teams are flying to Alabama to battle. I'm sure this makes a lot of sense from a scientific standpoint (sarcasm).
You are correct. Flying to Alabama (going through 2 airports, an airplane, rental car areas, hotels) does not make a lot of scientific sense if one is trying to reduce exposure to the growing virus. It would have been better to have the meet close to home where people could drive and have less exposure. The minimum exposure is not to run the meet at all, which is what the organizers were attempting.
Yes, the risk for healthy youth appears to be small. However, this virus is less than 1 year old. It is a a disease that attacks the blood vessels so that it can replicate itself in the lungs where there are lots of vessels. The heart and liver also have lots of vessels and that is why some get very sick and take months to recover. Are we absolutely sure that these effects are not permanent? As a scientist and an actual conservative, it seems easier to avoid exposure and wear a mask just in case.
But the risk of a youth contracting the virus is not necessarily the risk to them. It is the risk of the propagating it to others and it will eventually get to someone who is high risk. If someone gets COVID doing something that was avoidable, then passes it on to their grandmother who dies, would it be worth it? What if it was a friend's grandparent? The further removed, the easier it is to justify.
If society prospers we all benefit. If society is not doing well, most of us suffer (as with the pandemic dragging on). If everyone put in a serious effort to stop the virus, things would go back to normal faster.
Here is an article about the effects of mask mandates in Canada. By any objective measure, they are doing much better than their southern neighbor.
https://voxeu.org/article/face-mask-mandates-slowed-spread-covid-19-canada