4 ms·

Except there is no convincing evidence that they actually do help others, and the whole theoretical mechanism is centered around catching large respiratory drop

Except there is no convincing evidence that they actually do help others, and the whole theoretical mechanism is centered around catching large respiratory droplets which is at odd with the totality of evidence pointing towards aerosol being the dominant mode. I would add if droplet transmission is the dominant mode, which I very much doubt, then masks would still fail in a real-world setting when you look at the fact they make conversational partners stand closer or speak louder, and the massive cross contamination that happens to almost everybody wearing these pieces of cloth over their faces (hands touch mask, mask touches hands, etc)

panarky 5y ago
> no convincing evidence This MIT study [0] was pretty convincing. They conclude that "face masks can be an extremely effective indoor safety measure". For example: If an infected person was riding on a commercial airline with 100 other people, other passengers would be at risk of infection within 70 minutes. If all of the passengers wore masks, however, that space could be safe for up to 54 hours. [0] https://www.pnas.org/content/118/17/e2018995118 https://www.pnas.org/content/118/17/e2018995118
- nradov 5y ago
  How can a model be convincing if it hasn't been extensively tested in the real world?
  - astrange 5y ago
    The model of wearing masks has been extensively tested in Asia. Meanwhile US doctors were telling me that putting on a mask would actually cause you to get infected faster because you'd do it wrong. (Then the CDC announced mask orders the next day and they mumbled something about new evidence to me.) And we can see who's done better in the last year.
    - makomk 5y ago
      It's looking more and more like a whole bunch of Asian countries just got lucky. Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam have all currently got uncontrolled community spread again (possibly China too), and whilst the Taiwan outbreak could maybe be blamed on them getting sloppy Singapore has been aggressively enforcing mask wearing the whole time. There was already good reason to suspect this was the case over a year ago too. The early outbreaks mostly seemed to be a gradient emanating outwards from Italy, with genetic testing suggesting that even the US had done reasonably well at halting spread from China and its big outbreaks came from Europe; Asia is obviously a long way from Italy and it was suspicious that a bunch of countries that in reality had widely varying policies on things like masks, testing, etc showed such similar results. Including countries like Australia and New Zealand that were more or less western in terms of culture but were geographically close to the rest.
- beagle3 5y ago
  Basically all convincing evidence for mask use is models (like the linked article) and in vitro unrealistic tests; whereas in real world data, the best I could find wrt covid is 2% reduction. Bacteria are a different matter, and possibly other viruses. But real world data about covid is that masks make very little difference either way, and are possibly harmful.
Matumio 5y ago
People touch their faces all the time, mask or not. And some non-physical effects of masks may be useful. If nothing else, fumbling around with masks is repeated reminder for all other measures. It may feel silly to wear a mask if you belief that this is the only effect. But you cannot deny that it is a causal effect, e.g. it would not happen without wearing the masks.
deleted 5y ago
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panarky 5y ago

> no convincing evidence This MIT study [0] was pretty convincing. They conclude that "face masks can be an extremely effective indoor safety measure". For example: If an infected person was riding on a commercial airline with 100 other people, other passengers would be at risk of infection within 70 minutes. If all of the passengers wore masks, however, that space could be safe for up to 54 hours. [0] https://www.pnas.org/content/118/17/e2018995118 https://www.pnas.org/content/118/17/e2018995118

nradov 5y ago
How can a model be convincing if it hasn't been extensively tested in the real world?
- astrange 5y ago
  The model of wearing masks has been extensively tested in Asia. Meanwhile US doctors were telling me that putting on a mask would actually cause you to get infected faster because you'd do it wrong. (Then the CDC announced mask orders the next day and they mumbled something about new evidence to me.) And we can see who's done better in the last year.
  - makomk 5y ago
    It's looking more and more like a whole bunch of Asian countries just got lucky. Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam have all currently got uncontrolled community spread again (possibly China too), and whilst the Taiwan outbreak could maybe be blamed on them getting sloppy Singapore has been aggressively enforcing mask wearing the whole time. There was already good reason to suspect this was the case over a year ago too. The early outbreaks mostly seemed to be a gradient emanating outwards from Italy, with genetic testing suggesting that even the US had done reasonably well at halting spread from China and its big outbreaks came from Europe; Asia is obviously a long way from Italy and it was suspicious that a bunch of countries that in reality had widely varying policies on things like masks, testing, etc showed such similar results. Including countries like Australia and New Zealand that were more or less western in terms of culture but were geographically close to the rest.
beagle3 5y ago
Basically all convincing evidence for mask use is models (like the linked article) and in vitro unrealistic tests; whereas in real world data, the best I could find wrt covid is 2% reduction. Bacteria are a different matter, and possibly other viruses. But real world data about covid is that masks make very little difference either way, and are possibly harmful.

Matumio 5y ago

People touch their faces all the time, mask or not. And some non-physical effects of masks may be useful. If nothing else, fumbling around with masks is repeated reminder for all other measures. It may feel silly to wear a mask if you belief that this is the only effect. But you cannot deny that it is a causal effect, e.g. it would not happen without wearing the masks.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]