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Here's why masks are useless: You are going to take your mask off with your dirty hands. You're going to wear your mask dutifully while outside, then you're goi

by jbob2000 7y ago

Here's why masks are useless: You are going to take your mask off with your dirty hands. You're going to wear your mask dutifully while outside, then you're going to walk inside your house and the first thing you will do is take your mask off - with your dirty hands. There are so many gotchas with wearing masks that it's best to just leave them for the people who are closest to the crisis. They're the ones with the greatest need and they have the training to make them effective. And besides... the coronavirus is not airborne, you need to be hit with a droplet from an infected person's cough or sneeze. There's such a small chance of that happening while you're out-and-about that it's not worth it to wear these things. The real solution is to wash your hands because that's the main vector of infection.

whatshisface 7y ago
>You are going to take your mask off with your dirty hands. You're going to wear your mask dutifully while outside, then you're going to walk inside your house and the first thing you will do is take your mask off - with your dirty hands. Now that you've warned me not to do that, won't masks work? I can access the same training materials as hospital workers. Also, what if I get a little cough? If I'm walking by your house, I'm sure you would like me to be wearing a mask.
- jbob2000 7y ago
  Reading training materials does not mean that you are trained. Who is going to slap your hand away from your face when you reach inside your mask to scratch an itch? What if you wash your hands, take of your mask, and then touch the door handle you touched with your dirty hands? I can come up with these scenarios all day. The point I'm making is that the real way to protect yourself is to wash your hands. That's it. The mask does nothing unless you're literally being coughed on by someone who is infected.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    >Reading training materials does not mean that you are trained. Who is going to slap your hand away from your face when you reach inside your mask to scratch an itch? What if you wash your hands, take of your mask, and then touch the door handle you touched with your dirty hands? These same caveats apply to medical workers, who occasionally get sick while treating cases. Risk reduction isn't risk elimination but that doesn't make it pointless. >The point I'm making is that the real way to protect yourself is to wash your hands. You could also come up with scenarios where someone who was insufficiently trained would fail to protect themselves with hand washing. Here are some: - Insufficient washing time. - Touching handle before and after. - Only using water. No measure is perfect, and I think we can all agree that a measure with a less-than-100% chance of working (whether hand-washing or mask wearing) is better than nothing.
    - jbob2000 7y ago
      It's not "better than nothing" if purchasing and wearing these masks is affecting people who actually need them. No official organization is advocating for their use. It is pure fear-mongering to purchase and wear them as a healthy person. Here's what the CDC says: > CDC does not recommend that people who are well wear a facemask to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including COVID-19. > Facemasks should be used by people who show symptoms of COVID-19 to help prevent the spread of the disease to others. The use of facemasks is also crucial for health workers and people who are taking care of someone in close settings (at home or in a health care facility). https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/prevention-treatment.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/prevention-t...
      - kps 7y ago
        CDC uses terminology that distinguishes a facemask from a respirator, as you will see from following the first link (‘health workers’) on the page you linked. > … patients should wear a facemask to contain secretions. > Use respiratory protection (i.e., a respirator) that is at least as protective as a fit-tested NIOSH-certified disposable N95 filtering facepiece respirator before entry into the patient room or care area.
mech1234 7y ago
You are claiming that the masks are useless. They are not. They have some effectiveness, and that effectiveness is limited. This is well-understood. Aerosol-based transmission is well-understood. Claiming that there are "gotchas" does not change the fact that wearing a mask reduces your risk. You are doing the very thing that I pointed out as incorrect: removing nuance. A more honest expression of your position would be "the limited effectiveness of the masks and their limited supply means that it is reasonable for the masks to be reserved for those who need them most." The honest debate around this position regards how much supply there is, how much individual liberty should dictate demand, and other such factors. The latter half of your post comes around to this, even though the first half is incorrect.
- jbob2000 7y ago
  I don't disagree with you, but the risk reduction they provide is so little that you may as well call them "useless". You should go buy a lotto ticket! There's a chance you could win!
  - mech1234 7y ago
    In matters of life and death, being careful is important. Taleb and others have a lot to say about tail risk, and coronavirus looks like a large tail risk to me. If I were a resident or planned an urgent visit in a Seattle nursing home I'd spend a good bit of money on PPE. The lottery ticket analogy does not work well. I'm reminded instead of the scenes in the Chernobyl mini-series where individuals are sent into unknown dangers- dangers that are impossible to see, difficult to understand, and require conscious thought and effort to avoid. Resources are scarce and authority figures do not have sufficient information to keep everyone as safe as they should. Whether you survive or not comes down to both luck (whether your place and duties precluded you from any other option) and ignorance (whether you picked up a chunk of radioactive graphite with your bare hand). Using PPE is an effort to counteract your ignorance.
  - achenatx 7y ago
    the risk reduction is actually very high. But the probability of being in the presence of the virus is very low. Health care workers treating infected patients have a 100% chance of being exposed so epidemiological risk reduction is large. I think the "useless" part actually refers to the the fact that the public at large wont be wearing masks so a few people wearing masks might protect themselves, but does nothing to alleviate the overall spread of the virus.
knzhou 7y ago
Come on, this is a trivially refutable opinion. If masks don't work, then why do healthcare workers need them?
- baddox 7y ago
  Presumably there are lots of medical devices that are very useful to trained healthcare workers that are not useful for other people.
- achenatx 7y ago
  I believe it is an epidemiological/statistical reason. Health care workers have a 100% chance of coming into contact. We cannot afford for them to be sick. The vast majority of people wont be wearing masks so a few people wearing masks wont stop the spread so it is pointless. Even if you do wear a mask your chance of coming into contact with virus is low so you are wasting a mask for little to no statistical gain. The n95 masks are very effective.
  - knzhou 7y ago
    There's a difference between "X doesn't work" and "given the current circumstances it would be useful if many people believed that X doesn't work".
    - sgift 7y ago
      There's also a big difference between "x works very bad for the untrained population, but let's pretend it doesn't, because my worldview demands some media conspiracy" and "x works well".
      - knzhou 7y ago
        East Asian countries have almost everybody wearing masks. I really don't think using these things is as complicated as you're making it out to be.
        7y ago
Seenso 7y ago
> Here's why masks are useless: You are going to take your mask off with your dirty hands. You're going to wear your mask dutifully while outside, then you're going to walk inside your house and the first thing you will do is take your mask off - with your dirty hands. The problem isn't so much touching the respirator with dirty hands, its getting your hands dirty by touching a contaminated respirator. Here's how to remove a mask without touching the (possibly contaminated) front: N95 3M mask: How to Wear & Remove (by Singapore General Hospital): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoxpvDVo_NI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoxpvDVo_NI
playpause 7y ago
It is possible to encourage positive collective behaviour without sacrificing making sense.

whatshisface 7y ago

>You are going to take your mask off with your dirty hands. You're going to wear your mask dutifully while outside, then you're going to walk inside your house and the first thing you will do is take your mask off - with your dirty hands. Now that you've warned me not to do that, won't masks work? I can access the same training materials as hospital workers. Also, what if I get a little cough? If I'm walking by your house, I'm sure you would like me to be wearing a mask.

jbob2000 7y ago
Reading training materials does not mean that you are trained. Who is going to slap your hand away from your face when you reach inside your mask to scratch an itch? What if you wash your hands, take of your mask, and then touch the door handle you touched with your dirty hands? I can come up with these scenarios all day. The point I'm making is that the real way to protect yourself is to wash your hands. That's it. The mask does nothing unless you're literally being coughed on by someone who is infected.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  >Reading training materials does not mean that you are trained. Who is going to slap your hand away from your face when you reach inside your mask to scratch an itch? What if you wash your hands, take of your mask, and then touch the door handle you touched with your dirty hands? These same caveats apply to medical workers, who occasionally get sick while treating cases. Risk reduction isn't risk elimination but that doesn't make it pointless. >The point I'm making is that the real way to protect yourself is to wash your hands. You could also come up with scenarios where someone who was insufficiently trained would fail to protect themselves with hand washing. Here are some: - Insufficient washing time. - Touching handle before and after. - Only using water. No measure is perfect, and I think we can all agree that a measure with a less-than-100% chance of working (whether hand-washing or mask wearing) is better than nothing.
  - jbob2000 7y ago
    It's not "better than nothing" if purchasing and wearing these masks is affecting people who actually need them. No official organization is advocating for their use. It is pure fear-mongering to purchase and wear them as a healthy person. Here's what the CDC says: > CDC does not recommend that people who are well wear a facemask to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including COVID-19. > Facemasks should be used by people who show symptoms of COVID-19 to help prevent the spread of the disease to others. The use of facemasks is also crucial for health workers and people who are taking care of someone in close settings (at home or in a health care facility). https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/prevention-treatment.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/prevention-t...
    - kps 7y ago
      CDC uses terminology that distinguishes a facemask from a respirator, as you will see from following the first link (‘health workers’) on the page you linked. > … patients should wear a facemask to contain secretions. > Use respiratory protection (i.e., a respirator) that is at least as protective as a fit-tested NIOSH-certified disposable N95 filtering facepiece respirator before entry into the patient room or care area.

mech1234 7y ago

You are claiming that the masks are useless. They are not. They have some effectiveness, and that effectiveness is limited. This is well-understood. Aerosol-based transmission is well-understood. Claiming that there are "gotchas" does not change the fact that wearing a mask reduces your risk. You are doing the very thing that I pointed out as incorrect: removing nuance. A more honest expression of your position would be "the limited effectiveness of the masks and their limited supply means that it is reasonable for the masks to be reserved for those who need them most." The honest debate around this position regards how much supply there is, how much individual liberty should dictate demand, and other such factors. The latter half of your post comes around to this, even though the first half is incorrect.

jbob2000 7y ago
I don't disagree with you, but the risk reduction they provide is so little that you may as well call them "useless". You should go buy a lotto ticket! There's a chance you could win!
- mech1234 7y ago
  In matters of life and death, being careful is important. Taleb and others have a lot to say about tail risk, and coronavirus looks like a large tail risk to me. If I were a resident or planned an urgent visit in a Seattle nursing home I'd spend a good bit of money on PPE. The lottery ticket analogy does not work well. I'm reminded instead of the scenes in the Chernobyl mini-series where individuals are sent into unknown dangers- dangers that are impossible to see, difficult to understand, and require conscious thought and effort to avoid. Resources are scarce and authority figures do not have sufficient information to keep everyone as safe as they should. Whether you survive or not comes down to both luck (whether your place and duties precluded you from any other option) and ignorance (whether you picked up a chunk of radioactive graphite with your bare hand). Using PPE is an effort to counteract your ignorance.
- achenatx 7y ago
  the risk reduction is actually very high. But the probability of being in the presence of the virus is very low. Health care workers treating infected patients have a 100% chance of being exposed so epidemiological risk reduction is large. I think the "useless" part actually refers to the the fact that the public at large wont be wearing masks so a few people wearing masks might protect themselves, but does nothing to alleviate the overall spread of the virus.

knzhou 7y ago

Come on, this is a trivially refutable opinion. If masks don't work, then why do healthcare workers need them?

baddox 7y ago
Presumably there are lots of medical devices that are very useful to trained healthcare workers that are not useful for other people.
achenatx 7y ago
I believe it is an epidemiological/statistical reason. Health care workers have a 100% chance of coming into contact. We cannot afford for them to be sick. The vast majority of people wont be wearing masks so a few people wearing masks wont stop the spread so it is pointless. Even if you do wear a mask your chance of coming into contact with virus is low so you are wasting a mask for little to no statistical gain. The n95 masks are very effective.
- knzhou 7y ago
  There's a difference between "X doesn't work" and "given the current circumstances it would be useful if many people believed that X doesn't work".
  - sgift 7y ago
    There's also a big difference between "x works very bad for the untrained population, but let's pretend it doesn't, because my worldview demands some media conspiracy" and "x works well".
    - knzhou 7y ago
      East Asian countries have almost everybody wearing masks. I really don't think using these things is as complicated as you're making it out to be.
      - 7y ago

Seenso 7y ago

> Here's why masks are useless: You are going to take your mask off with your dirty hands. You're going to wear your mask dutifully while outside, then you're going to walk inside your house and the first thing you will do is take your mask off - with your dirty hands. The problem isn't so much touching the respirator with dirty hands, its getting your hands dirty by touching a contaminated respirator. Here's how to remove a mask without touching the (possibly contaminated) front: N95 3M mask: How to Wear & Remove (by Singapore General Hospital): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoxpvDVo_NI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoxpvDVo_NI

playpause 7y ago

It is possible to encourage positive collective behaviour without sacrificing making sense.