I want to write a full post on this sometime, but at at my high school there's a pretty sharp division between social groups of whether to wear masks or not. The Asian kids driven by their parents to get good grades, the theatre kids, the nerds, and the emo kids mainly wear masks (as our local Blue Tribe representatives), while the majority of the other social groups (Red Tribe, athletic kids (which make up greater than 25% of students), everyone else who isn't strongly in one of the above groups) don't wear their masks.

In Virginia, the mask mandate was lifted only a couple weeks ago, and so we've seen more people stop wearing their masks over time. The first couple days after the mandate was lifted, everyone was still wearing masks due to peer pressure, but at this point around 60% of the students are still masked and 75% of the teachers are, give or take 20% for both estimates.

At the magnet school that I spend half my time at (Academies of Loudoun), the tribal differences are even more pronounced. The kids in the technical education program have the most variance, as the students in the more "low-status" pathways (not to be confused with income) like welding/construction/car repair mainly don't wear their masks, but the ones that seem more Blue Tribe (filmmaking, graphic design, graphic communcation (read:fashion)) are more mask-reliant. The kids in the computer science/general science pathways almost exclusively wear masks, even now.

Reasons: The science pathways are more predominately Asians driven by their parents, and Blue Tribe. When the mask mandate was first lifted, I overheard one girl say that her parents had told her to wear a mask regardless (it was implied she'd be wearing it anyway), and separately someone in my class said something along the lines of "most people here are still wearing their masks, because we follow the science".

As for me personally, I started by wearing it 24/7 out of peer pressure, but now don't bother for classes at my local high school or at Academies. I'm the only person in my Academies class not to.

Anyway, long story short, I'd be surprised if more than 25% of students were still wearing masks when school starts next year (barring any substantial COVID wave before then), and think that the chances of the linked prediction are maaaaybe 4%? I haven't done much forecasting in general, so may be miscalibrated.

I think the best answer can come from the history of China pre-coronavirus. There, mask wearing is far from common, but in a crowd of 100 people you will likely find at least one person wearing a mask and sometimes 10 or more. Often people wear masks because they have a cold and think mask-wearing will protect others. I'm not sure specifically if this trend is also present in pre-corona, Chinese schools, but it makes sense that they would be similar to the general population.

Mask wearing really didn't start in pre-corona China until there was a sars outbreak around 2004. And their intermittent mask-wearing lasted up until 2019. I would extrapolate from this history that at least 1-10% of children in America schools will be wearing masks in school until at least 2035. Probably with a lot of variation betwixt leftists and conservatives. Currently 0% of children wear masks in many Florida and Georgia schools. Whereas in California, as you've seen, entire schools remain masked.

This is completely stupid.

I am quite far on the covid-paranoid side (one of the few remaining people in my bubble who didn't get covid yet), and yet I use a simple rule of thumb: mask inside (other than at your home), no mask outside.

Wearing masks outside is not about micromorts; it is costly social signalling. A group that chooses "masks outside" as their signal of loyalty seems quite stupid to me. But of course, the more stupid something is, the better costly signal it makes.

(Someone please tell those kids and their parents that it is scientifically proved that wearing masks outside is racist... probably the only argument they would listen to.)