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No. This is more propaganda. Research studies on SARS show that wearing an N95 mask reduces your chances of contracting SARS by 91%. In March, 1 of every 100

No. This is more propaganda. Research studies on SARS show that wearing an N95 mask reduces your chances of contracting SARS by 91%. In March, 1 of every 1000 Americans had a confirmed case of COVID. In April, it might be 1 out of 40. For confirmed cases, given that testing is mostly restricted to people appearing at the hospital, I estimate the fatality rate is 7%. That means that in April, you may have a 0.2% chance of dying from COVID. If you wear a mask consistently, that goes down to 0.02%. If you assume you have 40 years left to live, if you're maskless, COVID will reduce your life expectancy by 1 month. If you have an N95 mask that you wear consistently, COVID will reduce your life expectancy by 3 days. Wearing an N95 mask in April increases your life expectancy by 27 days. By contrast, wearing a seatbelt over the next month, statistically increases your life expectancy by about 0.2 days. Over the next month, wearing an N95 mask is about 130x more important than wearing a seatbelt. All of this discounts the massive other benefits from not being infected: No long-term lung damage. All of the people you don't infect because you didn't get infected. No infecting healthcare workers. No contributing to the overload of the healthcare system. Plus, wearing a mask, even if you do get infected, you're much less likely to infect other people, which has a cascading effect. The point is: If you have access to a mask, it's vitally important that you start wearing it if you go out. Still, don't go out unless absolutely necessary! Minimize contact! Especially for essential workers though like grocery store employees, delivery workers, etc, wear a mask!

timr 7y ago
Research studies on SARS show that wearing an N95 mask reduces your chances of contracting SARS by 91%. OK, cite it.
- cameldrv 7y ago
  Gladly. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190272/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190272/ Table 6. This is a Cochrane review BTW, the gold standard in evidence based medicine.
  - timr 7y ago
    Cochrane is the name of a literature database, not a method. It implies nothing about the quality of the research. In fact, this is a meta-analysis of 138 papers from five different databases, and they say right at the top of the abstract that most of the studies were of poor quality: "Study quality was poor for the three randomised controlled trials and most of the cluster randomised controlled trials; the observational studies were of mixed quality. Heterogeneity precluded meta-analysis of most data except that from six case-control studies." The table you're citing says that they found an odds ratio somewhat better than frequent handwashing (55%), but worse than wearing a gown (77%) when they averaged the results of five different case-control studies, mostly in hospital conditions (the sixth didn't look at masks). Two studies investigated the use of N95 masks (specifically) at preventing infected people from transmitting their virus to others, and for these studies, they found a .09 odds ratio (with a wide confidence interval: 0.03-0.3), and they go so far as to say: "Evidence was limited for the superior effectiveness of barrier devices to droplets such as the N95 masks...over simple surgical masks." So they don't even believe the numbers. This paper in no way supports the statement you made...in fact, it appears that you completely misunderstood what you read, because the only intervention with 91% effectiveness was "handwashing, mask, gloves and gown combined." But hey...if that's the way you go outside, good for you.
    - cameldrv 7y ago
      Please. Table 6. Intervention: Wearing N95 Mask Intervention Effectiveness: 91%. It's true that handwashing, wearing some kind of mask, gloves, and gown combined is also 91%, but that was not a study arm that specified an N95 mask. Wearing any mask has an intervention effectiveness of 68%. Adding the gloves and gown brings it up to 91%. What the meta-analysis is saying is that wearing any mask + gloves + gown + handwashing is about the same effectiveness as wearing just an N95 mask. It also supports the idea that "don't touch your face" is probably good advice, but it's also probably not the primary means that SARS spreads. It's probably mostly breathing in droplets that someone just exhaled. I understood perfectly well what they wrote. They say that evidence is limited for the superior effectiveness of N95 over any mask because the lower confidence interval of N95 and the upper confidence interval of any mask overlap by 5%. Based on the studies they analyzed though, it's likely that N95 is more effective than masks generally. It's also very logical since N95 masks filter better and have less leakage than surgical masks. I am tired of people like you trying to bend science to their ideology. That is part of what got us into this horrible mess.

timr 7y ago

Research studies on SARS show that wearing an N95 mask reduces your chances of contracting SARS by 91%. OK, cite it.

cameldrv 7y ago
Gladly. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190272/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190272/ Table 6. This is a Cochrane review BTW, the gold standard in evidence based medicine.
- timr 7y ago
  Cochrane is the name of a literature database, not a method. It implies nothing about the quality of the research. In fact, this is a meta-analysis of 138 papers from five different databases, and they say right at the top of the abstract that most of the studies were of poor quality: "Study quality was poor for the three randomised controlled trials and most of the cluster randomised controlled trials; the observational studies were of mixed quality. Heterogeneity precluded meta-analysis of most data except that from six case-control studies." The table you're citing says that they found an odds ratio somewhat better than frequent handwashing (55%), but worse than wearing a gown (77%) when they averaged the results of five different case-control studies, mostly in hospital conditions (the sixth didn't look at masks). Two studies investigated the use of N95 masks (specifically) at preventing infected people from transmitting their virus to others, and for these studies, they found a .09 odds ratio (with a wide confidence interval: 0.03-0.3), and they go so far as to say: "Evidence was limited for the superior effectiveness of barrier devices to droplets such as the N95 masks...over simple surgical masks." So they don't even believe the numbers. This paper in no way supports the statement you made...in fact, it appears that you completely misunderstood what you read, because the only intervention with 91% effectiveness was "handwashing, mask, gloves and gown combined." But hey...if that's the way you go outside, good for you.
  - cameldrv 7y ago
    Please. Table 6. Intervention: Wearing N95 Mask Intervention Effectiveness: 91%. It's true that handwashing, wearing some kind of mask, gloves, and gown combined is also 91%, but that was not a study arm that specified an N95 mask. Wearing any mask has an intervention effectiveness of 68%. Adding the gloves and gown brings it up to 91%. What the meta-analysis is saying is that wearing any mask + gloves + gown + handwashing is about the same effectiveness as wearing just an N95 mask. It also supports the idea that "don't touch your face" is probably good advice, but it's also probably not the primary means that SARS spreads. It's probably mostly breathing in droplets that someone just exhaled. I understood perfectly well what they wrote. They say that evidence is limited for the superior effectiveness of N95 over any mask because the lower confidence interval of N95 and the upper confidence interval of any mask overlap by 5%. Based on the studies they analyzed though, it's likely that N95 is more effective than masks generally. It's also very logical since N95 masks filter better and have less leakage than surgical masks. I am tired of people like you trying to bend science to their ideology. That is part of what got us into this horrible mess.