4 ms·

I totally agree that this is nothing more than correlation at this point. I'm all for a double-blind study and would love to better quantify mask-wearing. I am

I totally agree that this is nothing more than correlation at this point. I'm all for a double-blind study and would love to better quantify mask-wearing. I am saying: wearing masks seems like an easy thing to do that could potentially limit the COVID-19 infection rate.

mbreese 7y ago
And it could also give people a false sense of security. Masks may be helpful, but only in concert with other practices. Distancing is going to have a much larger impact on limiting the viral spread. If you have a bunch of people wearing masks that are only partially effective start gathering in large groups, you run the risk of negating all of the good generated from distancing.
- svara 7y ago
  The "false sense of security" point needs evidence the same way that we need evidence on whether masks are beneficial or not. There's evidence for the latter, and, to the best of my knowledge, only speculation on the former point. Either way, no one is advocating for mask wearing to replace other mitigation measures.
- xiphias2 7y ago
  Social distancing itself doesn't work. When I go to a shop, I always see people without masks, or even having masks but not using them properly (it's supposed to be on the mouth, not on the chin). They are the people who just don't care if they kill other people by chance, even thought the radio is talking about the seriousness of coronavirus all the time in the shop. I always use a P100 full face mask when shopping, because I have respiratiory illness and scared of getting sick and breathing even harder than I can right now.
svara 7y ago
That's nonsense. How are you going to blind people to whether they're wearing a mask or not? There's already a lot of evidence supporting the use of mask to protect the wearer and to protect transmission of infection from the wearer ("source control") both in healthcare and in community settings. We wrote a sort of mini-review on this recently: https://medium.com/@matthiassamwald/promoting-simple-do-it-yourself-masks-an-urgent-intervention-for-covid-19-mitigation-14da4100f429 https://medium.com/@matthiassamwald/promoting-simple-do-it-y...

mbreese 7y ago

And it could also give people a false sense of security. Masks may be helpful, but only in concert with other practices. Distancing is going to have a much larger impact on limiting the viral spread. If you have a bunch of people wearing masks that are only partially effective start gathering in large groups, you run the risk of negating all of the good generated from distancing.

svara 7y ago
The "false sense of security" point needs evidence the same way that we need evidence on whether masks are beneficial or not. There's evidence for the latter, and, to the best of my knowledge, only speculation on the former point. Either way, no one is advocating for mask wearing to replace other mitigation measures.
xiphias2 7y ago
Social distancing itself doesn't work. When I go to a shop, I always see people without masks, or even having masks but not using them properly (it's supposed to be on the mouth, not on the chin). They are the people who just don't care if they kill other people by chance, even thought the radio is talking about the seriousness of coronavirus all the time in the shop. I always use a P100 full face mask when shopping, because I have respiratiory illness and scared of getting sick and breathing even harder than I can right now.

svara 7y ago

That's nonsense. How are you going to blind people to whether they're wearing a mask or not? There's already a lot of evidence supporting the use of mask to protect the wearer and to protect transmission of infection from the wearer ("source control") both in healthcare and in community settings. We wrote a sort of mini-review on this recently: https://medium.com/@matthiassamwald/promoting-simple-do-it-yourself-masks-an-urgent-intervention-for-covid-19-mitigation-14da4100f429 https://medium.com/@matthiassamwald/promoting-simple-do-it-y...