Another thing I wonder about is what are the affects of wearing masks at young age and not getting usual amount of exposure to viruses and other germs.
I remember reading here and elsewhere that early childhood exposure to germs builds a robust immune system.
While my kid doesn’t wear mask in his class but his school is following very strict cleaning procedures. So he hasn’t gotten sick as much before pandemic. Maybe that is good, definitely easier on us. Maybe we will always have higher level of hygiene now. Or maybe in future there will be a lot of young adults with underdeveloped immune system.
Having young kids myself, I can say pretty confidently that kids are going to expose themselves to quite a lot of germs no matter what precautions we take, short of putting them in solitary confinement in clean rooms.
So I think it's possible that precautions reduce viral and bacterial exposure, but since they don't completely stop it, immune systems may still get enough exposure to build immunity to things while still not getting enough exposure to actually make them sick.
This seems to run counter to the current hygiene hypothesis, which is the current mainstream scientific opinion on one aspect of allergy development. Children in developed countries are decreasingly exposed to various microorganisms, and this is thought to result in increased rates of allergic disorders.
I believe that it's common for kids to wear masks during flu season in some countries. They probably have some relevant data.
I think there's a belief that strict adherence to vaccination and masks would get us to a place where we won't need masks all the time, and kids can resume their usual immune-system adventures. That might be less realistic than we might want. I don't know.
I remember reading here and elsewhere that early childhood exposure to germs builds a robust immune system.
While my kid doesn’t wear mask in his class but his school is following very strict cleaning procedures. So he hasn’t gotten sick as much before pandemic. Maybe that is good, definitely easier on us. Maybe we will always have higher level of hygiene now. Or maybe in future there will be a lot of young adults with underdeveloped immune system.