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Comment by jacobs123 | Hacker News Reader

> "Harvard must implement a comprehensive mask ban with serious and immediate penalties for violation, not less than suspension."

Wow. Imagine being sick with something serious like pneumonia and having to decide whether to get everyone around you sick, or risk being suspended from school.

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While I am not a friend of a mask ban, universities should absolutely teach their students to stay home when sick. Going to work sick is an abomination that should be rooted out. And it is a nice liberal cause too.

I think you mean jailed, tortured and deported.

If you're seriously ill, you should get treatment, not walk around hoping that a piece of cloth will save others from exposure to whatever it is you're coughing up.

What if they have pollen or other allergies that masks help mitigate? What if there’s a huge forest fire that’s polluting the outside air with acrid smoke?

There are so many possible scenarios. What if the campus is infested with face-huggers from the award-winning movie Alien? What if there are still Jewish students and faculty members who need to be harassed anonymously?

I'll leave those to people more familiar with the subject. And as for the pneumonia scenario, I reiterate that the only sane course of action is to seek treatment, not to walk around public spaces, masked or not.

Except that masks do statistically work in preventing the spread of contagion.

Even if it's just 10% it's still worth doing.

There are also tons of legit reasons to wear a mask besides being contagious.

Anyone defending a mask ban is doing it to support ideology, not practicality. Just say that instead of using really dumb click bait fox news quips.

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