Thinking of being protected by face masks is a lazy mental shortcut for "I will limit the spreading of my microbiome, if all others do the same, infection risk goes down"
right, because masks are performative. that's why you see them so much out in public where they do little, but not much in private spaces where they could help in specific instances.
that limited context is when two people are facing each other, one infected, in relatively calm air, and within direct exhaust inhalation distance (~1m/3ft). yet we've been sold by the political media machine that they prevent spread everywhere, so "just wear a mask!" it's become the #1 policy prescription all over the world, because it's seen as doing something visible (political win) but not too much (more political win!).
distancing among non-household members when indoors is a much better first mitigation, but it keeps getting lumped in with masks (and the even less useful hand-washing/sanitizing) and drowned out because it's not as visibly performative. if the virus doesn't land on mucus membranes it's overwhelmingly likely to die.
Yeah, I get that “casual” face mask wearing won’t do a lot to protect the wearer from contracting the virus, but if everyone was wearing a masks, that would reduce transmission by know AND unknown carriers. I’m somewhat frustrated wearing masks for this reason is not mandated.
Ok, apparently this is the hill I'm going to die on.
Up through roughly April-May 2020, many, if not most, epidemiologists and virologists believed that masks would not help the situation: they thought respiratory viruses were spread through large droplets produced by symptomatic individuals and that physical separation, sanitation, and behavior would work as well as trying to convince people to were useful masks consistently and correctly. (Earlier today, I walked past a woman wearing a bandana tied around her head. Below her nose. Why!?)
After that time, reports began to appear showing coronavirus could be spread asymptomatically, by normal breathing and speech, in an aerosol form that could stay airborne for long times. Under those situations, masks are the only solution.
The "ensure that enough protective equipment was available for frontline health workers" thing was mostly a response to "but it couldn't hurt" thinking.
"Then there is the infamous mask issue. Epidemiologists have taken a lot of heat on this question in particular. Until well into March 2020, I was skeptical about the benefit of everyone wearing face masks. That skepticism was based on previous scientific research as well as hypotheses about how covid was transmitted that turned out to be wrong. Mask-wearing has been a common practice in Asia for decades, to protect against air pollution and to prevent transmitting infection to others when sick. Mask-wearing for protection against catching an infection became widespread in Asia following the 2003 SARS outbreak, but scientific evidence on the effectiveness of this strategy was limited.
"Before the coronavirus pandemic, most research on face masks for respiratory diseases came from two types of studies: clinical settings with very sick patients, and community settings during normal flu seasons. In clinical settings, it was clear that well-fitting, high-quality face masks, such as the N95 variety, were important protective equipment for doctors and nurses against viruses that can be transmitted via droplets or smaller aerosol particles. But these studies also suggested careful training was required to ensure that masks didn’t get contaminated when surface transmission was possible, as is the case with SARS. Community-level evidence about mask-wearing was much less compelling. Most studies showed little to no benefit to mask-wearing in the case of the flu, for instance. Studies that have suggested a benefit of mask-wearing were generally those in which people with symptoms wore masks — so that was the advice I embraced for the coronavirus, too.
"I also, like many other epidemiologists, overestimated how readily the novel coronavirus would spread on surfaces — and this affected our view of masks. Early data showed that, like SARS, the coronavirus could persist on surfaces for hours to days, and so I was initially concerned that face masks, especially ill-fitting, homemade or carelessly worn coverings could become contaminated with transmissible virus. In fact, I worried that this might mean wearing face masks could be worse than not wearing them. This was wrong. Surface transmission, it emerged, is not that big a problem for covid, but transmission through air via aerosols is a big source of transmission. And so it turns out that face masks do work in this case.
"I changed my mind on masks in March 2020, as testing capacity increased and it became clear how common asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infection were (since aerosols were the likely vector). I wish that I and others had caught on sooner — and better testing early on might have caused an earlier revision of views — but there was no bad faith involved."
I don't follow this reasoning. An imperfect mask is surely going to result in a borderline contacts with infection being non-infections. The debate is "by how much" and without really clear evidence to the contrary, the precautionary principle wins.
Wearing masks is usually only a minor inconvenience. I'm gobsmacked how it's become such a battleground.
This is a completely nonsensical dismissal unless you want to claim the outcome for people who actually get ill is different for those who wore masks versus those who didn’t.
And be sure to keep in mind that the vast majority of infections occur at home where I sincerely doubt people are wearing masks.
Up through roughly April-May 2020, many, if not most, epidemiologists and virologists believed that masks would not help the situation: they thought respiratory viruses were spread through large droplets produced by symptomatic individuals and that physical separation, sanitation, and behavior would work as well as trying to convince people to were useful masks consistently and correctly.
After that time, reports began to appear showing coronavirus could be spread asymptomatically, by normal breathing and speech, in an aerosol form that could stay airborne for long times. Under those situations, masks are the only solution.
The "ensure that enough protective equipment was available for frontline health workers" thing was mostly a response to "but it couldn't hurt" thinking.
"Then there is the infamous mask issue. Epidemiologists have taken a lot of heat on this question in particular. Until well into March 2020, I was skeptical about the benefit of everyone wearing face masks. That skepticism was based on previous scientific research as well as hypotheses about how covid was transmitted that turned out to be wrong. Mask-wearing has been a common practice in Asia for decades, to protect against air pollution and to prevent transmitting infection to others when sick. Mask-wearing for protection against catching an infection became widespread in Asia following the 2003 SARS outbreak, but scientific evidence on the effectiveness of this strategy was limited.
"Before the coronavirus pandemic, most research on face masks for respiratory diseases came from two types of studies: clinical settings with very sick patients, and community settings during normal flu seasons. In clinical settings, it was clear that well-fitting, high-quality face masks, such as the N95 variety, were important protective equipment for doctors and nurses against viruses that can be transmitted via droplets or smaller aerosol particles. But these studies also suggested careful training was required to ensure that masks didn’t get contaminated when surface transmission was possible, as is the case with SARS. Community-level evidence about mask-wearing was much less compelling. Most studies showed little to no benefit to mask-wearing in the case of the flu, for instance. Studies that have suggested a benefit of mask-wearing were generally those in which people with symptoms wore masks — so that was the advice I embraced for the coronavirus, too.
"I also, like many other epidemiologists, overestimated how readily the novel coronavirus would spread on surfaces — and this affected our view of masks. Early data showed that, like SARS, the coronavirus could persist on surfaces for hours to days, and so I was initially concerned that face masks, especially ill-fitting, homemade or carelessly worn coverings could become contaminated with transmissible virus. In fact, I worried that this might mean wearing face masks could be worse than not wearing them. This was wrong. Surface transmission, it emerged, is not that big a problem for covid, but transmission through air via aerosols is a big source of transmission. And so it turns out that face masks do work in this case.
"I changed my mind on masks in March 2020, as testing capacity increased and it became clear how common asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infection were (since aerosols were the likely vector). I wish that I and others had caught on sooner — and better testing early on might have caused an earlier revision of views — but there was no bad faith involved."
1) They prevent the wearer from getting the virus from other people.
2) The prevent the wearer giving the virus to other people.
People talk a lot about viral load, and about breathing droplets deep into your lungs. So, (2) doesn't make much sense to me. The person with mild covid-19 infection places a mask around their mouth and nose, thus trapping all those infected droplets, which then get breathed back in. If the mechanism of action really is "breathing the virus causes severe infection" why would you want to trap the virus by your mouth and nose?
> If masks are as completely useless as he claims
They're not saying they're completely useless. They're saying that lots of the people wearing masks expect 100% protection, even if they're doing fucking stupid things. There's absolutely no point in both wearing a mask and going to a football match. https://www.thenational.ae/image/policy:1.998514:1585469410/...
If we're going to force people to wear masks we need to make sure they're wearing them correctly, because an incorrectly worn mask may do more harm than good.
My understanding is that for Covid your mask is expected to filter exhalation, protecting others from any virus you may have in your system. My understanding is that masks do very little to protect you from inhaling unwanted virus carrying particles.
Of course, it seems to me that a good mask should really be doing both jobs at once, with a good seal. Which means no beards and headbands. My understanding since the beginning of this pandemic was that everyone was going to get this bug, it was just a matter of "flattening the curve". So, why are we still talking about masks? I sometimes fear that the right has turned it into a political issue, and in response the left has ALSO turned it into a political issue, instead of a rational one.
People should be wearing these masks in public. I’m not sure why this is being so actively discouraged.
You don’t know if you’re infected. You may be asymptotic for days. That’s why we should be wearing face masks — to prevent us from accidentally spreading it when we’re sick.
I don't have any medical training, and speak only from perspective of common sense.
Your argument about trapping virus inside the mask is not very convincing. If you are putting a physical barrier between your respiratory system and air in high-risk areas (general stores, pharmacies and public transportation), then statistically there should be far more prevented contacts with viruses than trapped virus particles.
The incorrectly fitted masks should provide some benefit over no mask, so this doesn't seem as a good argument for not wearing masks. I would think that even putting shirt over nose gives some protection as it prevents touching face and diminishes odds of contamination with spit particles. Besides, the article is about home-made masks and not N95 masks.
The only convincing reason against masks is that they give false sense of security, so they shouldn't be the _only_ measure. Washing hands, wearing masks and physical distancing can only be beneficial.
The new cases going down are at least partially because of continued mitigation work.
I genuinely don't understand the anti-mask mania, I really don't. Mask use is almost free. Virtually no activities are precluded by wearing a mask (even eating, frankly, just lift it up and put it back to chew). Masks should be the first mitigation rule enforced in a respiratory disease environment and the last one relaxed.
Restaurant and event closures, quarantines, travel restrictions, testing requirements, vaccine registries... All of those have significant real costs and should be done only when masks aren't sufficient. And they should all be relaxed first before we give up masks.
But yet, everyone points to masks as somehow the opposite: in the minds of so many people (even seemingly scientifically literate people here) they're the worst thing imaginable, and... why? They're just masks. Wear 'em. It's cheap and easy.
Man, we went through so many cycles of “You (shouldn’t/must) wear (one/two/three) masks because the virus is (not) aerosolized and anyway the vaccine(s) (will be / are / weren’t) effective enough (to keep you off a ventilator / to keep you from having unspecified long term impacts that elude well-designed studies but we’re sure they exist).
You’re completely misinterpreting the mask situation.
Of course they say there’s no evidence that a mask will protect YOU. Masks aren’t supposed to protect YOU. They prevent YOU transmitting the virus to OTHERS. So of course it doesn’t reduce YOUR risk of respiratory infection. That conclusion has not changed.
The guidance was pretty clear: they didn’t want people wearing masks because there was a PPE shortage. Now there isn’t a shortage, so they want people wearing masks.
Because masks never really made any statistical impact on the virus spread, so requiring them at this point means you’re not following the data you’re following something else. (I was pro-mask for a while before we had data)
They have been shown to disrupt key aspects of human communication. Personally, I've had friends tell me how much they like that everyone is in masks because they no longer strike up conversations during random encounters, say in the grocery store.
It contributes to a sense of permanent emergency which should be gone by now given that the vast majority of the at-risk population is vaccinated. At this point I don't see the purpose of attempting to stop or slow the spread of an endemic respiratory virus, that is just a fool's errand at this point.
They also probably don't work, or at least not very well. People used to point to the Asian countries that hadn't had big outbreaks as evidence that population-wide mask compliance could work to prevent transmission, but that is no longer the case as they have all had big outbreaks. Even China had to halt traffic in and out of Wuhan recently.
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