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I live in Japan and everyone here wears a mask, but more importantly, wears them properly. Many Japanese people are already attuned to wearing them during flu s

I live in Japan and everyone here wears a mask, but more importantly, wears them properly. Many Japanese people are already attuned to wearing them during flu season, and everyone wears them if they think they are getting a cold so it's no big deal for everyone to wear them the whole time, kids included. I'm not Japanese, but I get with the program and after a while, you don't notice it. Masks are, of course, effective. Again, if you wear them properly and constantly, and everyone wears them. The people who DON'T want to wear them and who wish to make it a political act will dredge up all sorts of B.S studies and data showing that "mandates" don't work and therefore extrapolate from that that masks themselves don't work, when any examination of the scene will show 60% of people wearing them 60% of the time, noses hanging out, lifting them up to talk, only putting them on when they've taken a few steps into the shop etc etc. Masks work. If you wish to be honest about it, you'd say "They work, but we can't get our citizens to wear them."

yostrovs 5y ago
You offer no evidence that masks work. The only thing you made clear is that the Japanese will obey and do as they're told. It's not like they all read the studies showing that masks work. They only do it because they believe the authorities and have a culture of submission. You can't read anything else from this as it's a unique society we cannot emulate.
- jbverschoor 5y ago
  They’ve worn masks since ages. They do it to protect others from getting ill. It’s this whole respect and care for others in society thing they have got going on there. It’s not something forced by the gov.
  - yostrovs 5y ago
    So it seems like your explanation is that it's not a culture of obedience, but rather that the Japanese individuals are just nicer, more caring people. Is that correct?
    - jbverschoor 5y ago
      The historical mask wearing yes. For the current status, it's probably obedience, sprinkled with some guilt-tripping by the media.
- fabbari 5y ago
  I find this comment quite odd - seeing that you're replying in a thread about a study that provides evidence that masks work. Not sure quite what to make of it, the most charitable interpretation is that you jumped in the comment section without reading the article. I urge you to read the article and then review your comment to include some pertinent commentary on the study.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  they’re people not unicorns, they wear masks when they’re sick because they don’t want other people to get sick… it’s not because of some form of totalitarianism
Stevvo 5y ago
How much of a mask's effectiveness is due to the physical barrier? and how much is due to it's role as a uniform, promoting conformity with other anti-covid behaviors in the group?
- snarf21 5y ago
  Mask effectiveness is to help prevent you spreading things. When you exhale, water droplets are still quite large and some will get caught on the fibers in even a t-shirt mask. After that has dissipated in the air, it will be smaller and will be breathed in through all but the best masks. There were lots of videos online when this became an issue where people showed how when it is really cold, you can "see" your breath (this is solely caused my warm moist air condensing into a "cloud" in the cold air). Put on even a crappy mask and you can't "see" it anymore. Sure it isn't 100% blocking but clearly is blocking moisture. Also, if you wear a heavy mask for a while, you will notice that it feels damp inside.
brnt 5y ago
I keep repeating this to mask-skeptics (which in my country is nearly everyone): Asia had their Sars-scare early, and they've basically been wearing masks ever since. They're doing pretty OK, not just because some countries (e.g. China) can and will _really_ lock a city down. Masks, hygiene, sickness discipline... they work. But even now nearly nobody objects when a colleague is obviously ill and still bring their snotty nose to work, COVID-free or not. I wish people would regard this like we regard washing our hands. But no, somehow people seem to think we've always washed our hands, and we have never changed our ways, and we shan't right now either because of freedumb. Uggghhh.
- nradov 5y ago
  Nonsense. Have you ever actually been to Asia? The vast majority of people haven't been wearing masks since the last SARS scare.
  - brnt 5y ago
    East Asia seems to be pretty good at wearing them, but youre right: Asia is a big place.
- sanedigital 5y ago
  We have no idea of knowing how China is actually doing, since they haven't reported a single death since April *2020*. And even the numbers they have reported are highly unlikely to be accurate.
  - brnt 5y ago
    I was specifically not talking about China, it seems I wasn't clear enough. Taiwan, Japan, masks are common in either.
    - sanedigital 5y ago
      Sorry, you specifically called them out ("e.g. China") so I thought you were focusing on them.
jdavis703 5y ago
The Bay Area has been under a mask mandate for 17 months now. I’m not sure what the criteria of “working” is, but I would define it as returning to pre-pandemic norms. Yet, we are still far from that. If however your definition of “working” is “prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed” or some other less ambitious criteria, then sure, it can be claimed that mask mandates work.
- dTal 5y ago
  >I would define it as returning to pre-pandemic norms. Magically fixing everything is a completely unreasonable threshold to define whether a health measure "works". Also the pre-pandemic norm was not to wear a mask, so according to you mask mandates definitionally cannot "work".
  - jdavis703 5y ago
    > Also the pre-pandemic norm was not to wear a mask, so according to you mask mandates definitionally cannot "work". The idea is we wear a mask for a temporary amount of time, eliminate community spread, and eliminate masks. Countries outside of North America have done this. For example, the UK is just now requiring theater goers to wear a mask again.
    - yebyen 5y ago
      > ... and eliminate masks. Countries outside of North America have done this. For example, the UK is just now requiring theater goers to wear a mask again. If the act of eliminating masks needs to be followed by imposing another mask mandate, this is not a solid argument that mask mandates can be successfully rolled back when some threshold has been crossed. (I'm reporting from Indiana, where there is no mask mandate, unless you're unvaccinated, and there is no system in place to tell vaccinated from non folks except for what amounts to basically, say so on your honor! :upside_down_smile:)
    - dTal 5y ago
      Well, again, it's just unreasonable to expect masks - alone - to completely eliminate community spread. You've got to think in terms of the reproduction rate R. If it's above 1 you're losing, if it's below 1 you're winning. Each measure, like mask wearing, knocks a little fraction off R. The goal is to knock as many little fractions off as possible. It's totally possible for masks to "work" in the sense of knocking a worthwhile chunk off R, and yet have the public health strategy as a whole fail to bring it below 1. The trouble is, managing R is an ongoing challenge. If you manage to get it below 1 and the rate of new infections decays to nearly nothing, great! But unless you completely shut the borders to prevent new seed infections, you have to keep doing whatever you were doing. If you relax, then R goes above 1, and exponential growth does its thing again and you're back where you started. There's a natural ceiling to the exponential growth - nobody quite knows why, though it's presumably something to do with acquired immunity - but it's a grim place to be. I wouldn't look to the UK as an example of how to manage a pandemic. It has been bouncing along its infection ceiling ever since all measures were relaxed in July. I predict that the new mask mandates will have no detectable effect on infection rates; their modest effect on R will fail to bring it below 1, and rates will continue to "bounce along the top".
nradov 5y ago
Masks may "work" to a limited extent to reduce the risk of transmission in any single interaction, but in the long run that won't save anyone. The virus is now endemic and almost everyone will eventually be exposed regardless of public health measures. You can't seriously expect asymptomatic people to wear masks in public forever. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 So what are the exit criteria?
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  I kind of like them so I just might. I haven’t had a single cold for 2 years.
- naikrovek 5y ago
  > You can't seriously expect asymptomatic people to wear masks in public forever. why not? I enjoy foiling facial recognition efforts, and those efforts are everywhere. I probably won't ever stop wearing a mask in public.
  - misiti3780 5y ago
    because there are a lot of people that feel the exact opposite of you - i dont ever want to wear one again!
    - formerly_proven 5y ago
      > i dont ever want to wear one again! Why do you feel so strongly about this? Masks of a few kinds are standard PPE in many fields, it's not like they're particularly restrictive or anything.
      - wowokay 5y ago
        Those fields people choose to join, they made the decision to accept that requirement. Plus as others have said in the grand scheme it's not the most effective Solution. Remote work, contactless services and other similar initiatives would yield a higher success and would reduce other things like crime and environmental impacts, why not pursue that or a contactless society instead if the goal is to prevent transmission
dageshi 5y ago
I wear masks when my country mandates that I should. But I think the issue is this... Covid is here to stay, many countries have very high vaccination rates at this point, so effectively if we continue to wear masks even in very high vaccination countries we're essentially saying we have to wear them forever, because what's going to change? Unless some new vaccine comes out that actually prevents transmission covid is a permanent thing. And to put it simply, while I understood the need to wear one when we had no vaccines because anything that helped was a good idea, I'm not sure I'm prepared to wear one indefinitely.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  I think the point you and the sibling comment makes are good ones: health authorities, at least in the US, have never been clear on the exit criteria for ending interventions, and the goal posts have continually been moved. Remember when "flatten the curve" was the original goal early in the pandemic? That almost seems like a quaint notion now. But that said, with an endemic disease I think the idea behind flatten the curve is the only one that makes sense - that is, masks should only be required if health care facilities are at risk of being overloaded. I'm fully vaccinated, so the only time I'll wear a mask are if transmission rates in my area are currently high (or if I'm entering a place that has a specific mask mandate - I don't enjoy wearing a mask but I also don't think it's a very big deal so I don't understand why so many choose it as their hill to die on).
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    > health authorities, at least in the US, have never been clear on the exit criteria for ending interventions "When we are confident we are not hours away from a nationwide medical emergency" is not easy to communicate. I'm sure if they literally said that, all the people complaining they have no clear exit criteria would loudly complain it is not clear; what, of course it isn't. If people knew all the details about how the pandemic will behave, they would have told you.
    - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
pretendjs 5y ago
Mask mandates are political - the government is enforcing the wearing of masks. The way you frame it shows extreme bias.
an9n 5y ago
> Masks work. If you wish to be honest about it, you'd say "They work, but we can't get our citizens to wear them." But the people telling us to wear them don't even bother themselves! There are countless examples of leaders 'forgetting' to mask up, or being caught putting on a mask - when they think they can't be seen doing so - immediately before they come on stage for a press conference etc. Or in yet another example, Boris Johnson apparently hosted a maskless boozy party with loads of people some time last Christmas. Add to that Professor Neil Ferguson gallivanting across London for a bunk up with his mistress in private at the same time as arguing for harsh lockdowns in public (the same chap has been quoted as admitting pretty much that masks do nothing to stop the virus, and are merely there to keep us afraid and demoralised - can't find the quote now, surprise surprise, as searching on Google merely returns 1 bazillion pages of pro vaccine propaganda). So lethal a virus that we need to be reminded it exists. Wow. Or recall former Health Secretary Matt Hancock merrily copping off with his mistress at the same time as going home to his wife and family. If this genuinely were such a super scary virus none of these things would be happening. The masks are there purely to terrify and dehumanise people, and they do not work in stopping the spread of the virus. The official advice did a 180 swivel around March 2020 from 'masks don't work' to 'wear the mask or else', around the same time as WHO etc. changed the definition of vaccine and herd immunity. Nothing to see here though of course. All completely above board. I'm obviously a mad conspiracy theorist for noticing these types of discrepancies. Trust the science comrade!
- thedevelopnik 5y ago
  Love the part where you take the example of Boris Johnson and his staff, and instead of going “What wrong-headed idiots,” you instead somehow take away “It’s the epidemiologists who are wrong-headed idiots!” There are plenty of political leaders who have treated the virus casually and died. Yes, many of them are hypocrites who say one thing publically and do another. I just have no idea who you get from your first paragraph to your second. Yes, your third paragraph. Literally.
  - an9n 5y ago
    Explain the changing of definitions by the WHO then please. Just that alone.
vadfa 5y ago
Masks work. I don't dispute that. I just don't want to wear one for the rest of my life. I don't want my government telling me what to wear. I got vaccinated months ago because I thought that would be the end of masks. That was the entire point of vaccinating: not needing a mask because the virus could do nothing to you. The vaccination rate in my country is almost 80% and we still have a mask mandate. I will not even consider taking a booster until they do away with the mask.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  While I agree with your general sentiment, saying "I will not even consider taking a booster until they do away with the mask" seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Wouldn't you want to get a booster just to lower your risk of getting a potentially severe illness?
  - ldehaan 5y ago
    Aww look, a coward.
  - vadfa 5y ago
    That is not necessary because I'm forced to wear a mask. If we are forced to wear masks, it's because masks work. Right? On the other hand, I fell ill for an entire day after taking the second dose, and I refuse to go through that again.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - dsauerbrun 5y ago
      I don't think it's binary like that(I'm willing to be proven wrong). Vaccines are effective at preventing infection and particularly severe infections. Masks are only effective at preventing you spreading your own infection. If you wear an n95 it will prevent you from getting infected but there is user error involved in tightness/compliance/etc.... My understanding has been that vaccines are more effective at preventing infection than masks so if you're picking between the two for your own safety, it would seem that the vaccine is the better choice for yourself. I will agree with you that the side effects from the vaccine are certainly a counter-argument for getting a booster every 6 months(or whenever a variant comes out that needs a different vaccine). I got mine last month and was asking myself, "I am pretty fit, in my 30's, I work from home, and my leisure activities are all outdoors(running/hiking/climbing)... Am I just going to get knocked out for 1-2 days every 6 months when my perceived risk level of catching covid is so low?" My hope is that we're spending time working on better vaccines with fewer side-effects. If the side-effects are like the flu shot i'll gladly get a booster whenever needed without thinking twice.
snarf21 5y ago
It is a shame that someone turned a health crisis into a political issue.
- digitalsushi 5y ago
  When people don't have the crayons and pencils they need to express themselves, they will reach for what is available.
  - geoduck14 5y ago
    Is this a jab at a particular political group? It sounds really deep
timr 5y ago
> I live in Japan and everyone here wears a mask, but more importantly, wears them properly I lived in Japan, and have many friends in Japan. This is true only if you redefine "properly" to exclude all indoor environments. People in Japan routinely gather inside without masks, then put them on when they go outside. You can watch the TV news and see people gathered in bars and restaurants with masks off, but then they wear them religiously while walking around the city. Absolutely pointless behavior. I see this behavior amongst my own friends regularly on Instagram and Facebook. Moreover, it's fairly common to see things like "chin masks", like this: https://zqxkk1h5ljq1vh5rd1kit5ok-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Chin-Up-Transparent-Fase-Mask-Extra-Nose-Coverage-9.jpg https://zqxkk1h5ljq1vh5rd1kit5ok-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-... I'm not sure what these are supposed to be doing, exactly, but sure, I guess people are "wearing masks". > Many Japanese people are already attuned to wearing them during flu season, and everyone wears them if they think they are getting a cold This wasn't even close to true, pre-pandemic. I was regularly sandwiched between people on trains with obvious head colds, sniffing their snot every 5 seconds. Sure, some people wore masks, but it wasn't "everyone". Not by a long shot. > Masks are, of course, effective. This is an assertion. The best available data from randomized controlled trials shows a minimal effect: https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk-of-covid19-by https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk... > Masks work. Repeating this phrase, without evidence, does not make it true. Even ignoring the top-line RCT evidence, you have to define what you mean by "masks" to get close to a meaningful statement -- a chin shield is obviously nothing like a cloth mask, is nothing like a full-face respirator.
- dkonofalski 5y ago
  This thread looks like it's being astro-turfed by supporters of Vinay Prasad and the nonsense he keeps peddling. There are plenty of studies showing that masks work and that they reduce transmission and spread and there are even studies that show that mask mandates have a drastic positive effect in limiting community transmission and spread.
  - timr 5y ago
    "Astroturfed"...that's hilarious. I'm a real person. I've been on the site for years. I think for myself and read and interpret data. Big Vinay Prasad is not paying me to come here and spread the gospel of randomized controlled trials and rigorous science. If you disagree with the data, you're more than welcome to bring rigorous arguments to the debate, and not merely propaganda. > There are plenty of studies showing that masks work and that they reduce transmission and spread and there are even studies that show that mask mandates have a drastic positive effect in limiting community transmission and spread. And, as noted, the vast majority of those "studies" are terrible, and the good studies show the opposite. This is not a game of collecting "papers", and the side with the most papers wins. They're not monopoly money or science points. You have to read them and understand the details. A paper that uses biased or flawed methodology (i.e. most mask studies) is useless for drawing conclusions.
belorn 5y ago
In Japan, how long can you keep a minimum distance of 1,5 meter or greater to any other human being while outside your home? Japan is not exactly known for its low population density, nor having a young population. I think most would agree that if they weren't effective in any situation then hospitals wouldn't had used them before the pandemic. The question has thus never been about if mask works, as obvious they do, but rather at what level of risk that they start being more effective than background noise. If I traveled to Japan I would distinctly wear a n95 mask both on the plane (a small tube of recycled air with minimal distance to each other for a long period of time), and inside Japan when near people. I wouldn't however go out to work/school if I felt like I was getting a cold, even if culturally people would look down on me for missing work. I can imagine that the social pressure would increase the general risk and thus masks would be a useful mitigation tactic.
kypro 5y ago
Obviously they work. Washing your hands works. Not having face to face contact with other humans works. The issue I think most people have is whether the data supports various health mandates and whether in the long run they'll actually have any impact. Even if the data is supports the claim that masks reduce spread, the data is less clear on if it's an effective means to combat a pandemic. Specifically, will masks limit the total number COVID cases given enough time, or just slow the time it takes for everyone in the population to be infected? An argument could be made that slowing spread gives time for vaccines and antivirals to be developed, in turn limiting cases and deaths, but this argument would then also depend on data and safety in regards to current / future vaccines and antivirals. > The people who DON'T want to wear them and who wish to make it a political act will dredge up all sorts of B.S studies I do get your annoyance here. I know a couple of people who don't just disagree with the concept of mask mandates, but also seem to be basing their opinion on some of the "B.S studies" you're referring to. I don't think this is the majority though. Most people just don't like being told what to do, especially when the benefits of mask mandates is probably quite negligible given they don't offer full protection, won't stop the pandemic, and the fact a lot (the majority?) of people will wear masks simply because they're recommended. I guess I sort of see it as similar to drinking alcohol or eating doughnuts. The data is pretty clear these things are bad and causing people to die in huge numbers, but the bar at which the government should step in and say you must or can't do something should probably be quite high. And in the case of mask mandates their effectiveness depends massively on the mask itself and how the wearer is wearing and using it. I've been at the store and had people cough right next to me in thin fabric masks while mandates were in place. I'm not even sure an effective mask mandate is possible, they certainly haven't given me much more comfort. Were I more concerned about COVID I'd personally be avoiding social contact as much as possible regardless of mask mandates. So yeah, masks work. People should wear them. I usually wear one in public. But the risk of COVID and their effectiveness doesn't justify mandating them imo.
- yebyen 5y ago
  > Most people just don't like being told what to do Bingo. I live in a "blue part" of red Indiana and this is the conclusion I've come to as well. It's extremely frustrating knowing that masks work when everyone wears them, but you are basically powerless to make a change when 90% of the people around you don't wear a mask at all, and 9 of 10 remaining folks that do wear one aren't wearing it correctly. I imagine that most of my neighbors are good folks that want to do something to help, but you can't control the people around you. If we could simply grant that "we don't like being told what to do" at the outset of the argument, I think we'd get a lot further in the national conversation. But "you can't tell me what to do" isn't a winning legal argument, so we get religious objections, and bogus "harm of the vaccine" studies with even more outrageous arguments, simply because those people who didn't like the idea of a mandate are smart enough to know they actually stand a chance in court with those arguments.
ldehaan 5y ago
Of course the most scared conformist is at the top. You have no idea what you're talking about. I'm sus that you've even lived in Japan for any amount of time. Also masks don't work, living in another country isn't proof, it just means that Japanese are super conformist. Duh.
stronglikedan 5y ago
I don't wear them because they fog up my glasses, and I can't talk for more than a few seconds without gasping for air. Fitting them properly makes both annoyances much worse. I'm not saying they're not effective, but the trade-off for such a small amount of efficacy is just not worth it for me. One thing I've noticed is that, when I try to explain this to pro-mask people, they're the ones that try to make it political. Most just cannot accept that there are non-political reasons for someone to not want to wear a mask.

yostrovs 5y ago

You offer no evidence that masks work. The only thing you made clear is that the Japanese will obey and do as they're told. It's not like they all read the studies showing that masks work. They only do it because they believe the authorities and have a culture of submission. You can't read anything else from this as it's a unique society we cannot emulate.

jbverschoor 5y ago
They’ve worn masks since ages. They do it to protect others from getting ill. It’s this whole respect and care for others in society thing they have got going on there. It’s not something forced by the gov.
- yostrovs 5y ago
  So it seems like your explanation is that it's not a culture of obedience, but rather that the Japanese individuals are just nicer, more caring people. Is that correct?
  - jbverschoor 5y ago
    The historical mask wearing yes. For the current status, it's probably obedience, sprinkled with some guilt-tripping by the media.
fabbari 5y ago
I find this comment quite odd - seeing that you're replying in a thread about a study that provides evidence that masks work. Not sure quite what to make of it, the most charitable interpretation is that you jumped in the comment section without reading the article. I urge you to read the article and then review your comment to include some pertinent commentary on the study.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
they’re people not unicorns, they wear masks when they’re sick because they don’t want other people to get sick… it’s not because of some form of totalitarianism

Stevvo 5y ago

How much of a mask's effectiveness is due to the physical barrier? and how much is due to it's role as a uniform, promoting conformity with other anti-covid behaviors in the group?

snarf21 5y ago
Mask effectiveness is to help prevent you spreading things. When you exhale, water droplets are still quite large and some will get caught on the fibers in even a t-shirt mask. After that has dissipated in the air, it will be smaller and will be breathed in through all but the best masks. There were lots of videos online when this became an issue where people showed how when it is really cold, you can "see" your breath (this is solely caused my warm moist air condensing into a "cloud" in the cold air). Put on even a crappy mask and you can't "see" it anymore. Sure it isn't 100% blocking but clearly is blocking moisture. Also, if you wear a heavy mask for a while, you will notice that it feels damp inside.

brnt 5y ago

I keep repeating this to mask-skeptics (which in my country is nearly everyone): Asia had their Sars-scare early, and they've basically been wearing masks ever since. They're doing pretty OK, not just because some countries (e.g. China) can and will _really_ lock a city down. Masks, hygiene, sickness discipline... they work. But even now nearly nobody objects when a colleague is obviously ill and still bring their snotty nose to work, COVID-free or not. I wish people would regard this like we regard washing our hands. But no, somehow people seem to think we've always washed our hands, and we have never changed our ways, and we shan't right now either because of freedumb. Uggghhh.

nradov 5y ago
Nonsense. Have you ever actually been to Asia? The vast majority of people haven't been wearing masks since the last SARS scare.
- brnt 5y ago
  East Asia seems to be pretty good at wearing them, but youre right: Asia is a big place.
sanedigital 5y ago
We have no idea of knowing how China is actually doing, since they haven't reported a single death since April *2020*. And even the numbers they have reported are highly unlikely to be accurate.
- brnt 5y ago
  I was specifically not talking about China, it seems I wasn't clear enough. Taiwan, Japan, masks are common in either.
  - sanedigital 5y ago
    Sorry, you specifically called them out ("e.g. China") so I thought you were focusing on them.

jdavis703 5y ago

The Bay Area has been under a mask mandate for 17 months now. I’m not sure what the criteria of “working” is, but I would define it as returning to pre-pandemic norms. Yet, we are still far from that. If however your definition of “working” is “prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed” or some other less ambitious criteria, then sure, it can be claimed that mask mandates work.

dTal 5y ago
>I would define it as returning to pre-pandemic norms. Magically fixing everything is a completely unreasonable threshold to define whether a health measure "works". Also the pre-pandemic norm was not to wear a mask, so according to you mask mandates definitionally cannot "work".
- jdavis703 5y ago
  > Also the pre-pandemic norm was not to wear a mask, so according to you mask mandates definitionally cannot "work". The idea is we wear a mask for a temporary amount of time, eliminate community spread, and eliminate masks. Countries outside of North America have done this. For example, the UK is just now requiring theater goers to wear a mask again.
  - yebyen 5y ago
    > ... and eliminate masks. Countries outside of North America have done this. For example, the UK is just now requiring theater goers to wear a mask again. If the act of eliminating masks needs to be followed by imposing another mask mandate, this is not a solid argument that mask mandates can be successfully rolled back when some threshold has been crossed. (I'm reporting from Indiana, where there is no mask mandate, unless you're unvaccinated, and there is no system in place to tell vaccinated from non folks except for what amounts to basically, say so on your honor! :upside_down_smile:)
  - dTal 5y ago
    Well, again, it's just unreasonable to expect masks - alone - to completely eliminate community spread. You've got to think in terms of the reproduction rate R. If it's above 1 you're losing, if it's below 1 you're winning. Each measure, like mask wearing, knocks a little fraction off R. The goal is to knock as many little fractions off as possible. It's totally possible for masks to "work" in the sense of knocking a worthwhile chunk off R, and yet have the public health strategy as a whole fail to bring it below 1. The trouble is, managing R is an ongoing challenge. If you manage to get it below 1 and the rate of new infections decays to nearly nothing, great! But unless you completely shut the borders to prevent new seed infections, you have to keep doing whatever you were doing. If you relax, then R goes above 1, and exponential growth does its thing again and you're back where you started. There's a natural ceiling to the exponential growth - nobody quite knows why, though it's presumably something to do with acquired immunity - but it's a grim place to be. I wouldn't look to the UK as an example of how to manage a pandemic. It has been bouncing along its infection ceiling ever since all measures were relaxed in July. I predict that the new mask mandates will have no detectable effect on infection rates; their modest effect on R will fail to bring it below 1, and rates will continue to "bounce along the top".

nradov 5y ago

Masks may "work" to a limited extent to reduce the risk of transmission in any single interaction, but in the long run that won't save anyone. The virus is now endemic and almost everyone will eventually be exposed regardless of public health measures. You can't seriously expect asymptomatic people to wear masks in public forever. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 So what are the exit criteria?

micromacrofoot 5y ago
I kind of like them so I just might. I haven’t had a single cold for 2 years.
naikrovek 5y ago
> You can't seriously expect asymptomatic people to wear masks in public forever. why not? I enjoy foiling facial recognition efforts, and those efforts are everywhere. I probably won't ever stop wearing a mask in public.
- misiti3780 5y ago
  because there are a lot of people that feel the exact opposite of you - i dont ever want to wear one again!
  - formerly_proven 5y ago
    > i dont ever want to wear one again! Why do you feel so strongly about this? Masks of a few kinds are standard PPE in many fields, it's not like they're particularly restrictive or anything.
    - wowokay 5y ago
      Those fields people choose to join, they made the decision to accept that requirement. Plus as others have said in the grand scheme it's not the most effective Solution. Remote work, contactless services and other similar initiatives would yield a higher success and would reduce other things like crime and environmental impacts, why not pursue that or a contactless society instead if the goal is to prevent transmission

dageshi 5y ago

I wear masks when my country mandates that I should. But I think the issue is this... Covid is here to stay, many countries have very high vaccination rates at this point, so effectively if we continue to wear masks even in very high vaccination countries we're essentially saying we have to wear them forever, because what's going to change? Unless some new vaccine comes out that actually prevents transmission covid is a permanent thing. And to put it simply, while I understood the need to wear one when we had no vaccines because anything that helped was a good idea, I'm not sure I'm prepared to wear one indefinitely.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
I think the point you and the sibling comment makes are good ones: health authorities, at least in the US, have never been clear on the exit criteria for ending interventions, and the goal posts have continually been moved. Remember when "flatten the curve" was the original goal early in the pandemic? That almost seems like a quaint notion now. But that said, with an endemic disease I think the idea behind flatten the curve is the only one that makes sense - that is, masks should only be required if health care facilities are at risk of being overloaded. I'm fully vaccinated, so the only time I'll wear a mask are if transmission rates in my area are currently high (or if I'm entering a place that has a specific mask mandate - I don't enjoy wearing a mask but I also don't think it's a very big deal so I don't understand why so many choose it as their hill to die on).
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  > health authorities, at least in the US, have never been clear on the exit criteria for ending interventions "When we are confident we are not hours away from a nationwide medical emergency" is not easy to communicate. I'm sure if they literally said that, all the people complaining they have no clear exit criteria would loudly complain it is not clear; what, of course it isn't. If people knew all the details about how the pandemic will behave, they would have told you.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

pretendjs 5y ago

Mask mandates are political - the government is enforcing the wearing of masks. The way you frame it shows extreme bias.

an9n 5y ago

> Masks work. If you wish to be honest about it, you'd say "They work, but we can't get our citizens to wear them." But the people telling us to wear them don't even bother themselves! There are countless examples of leaders 'forgetting' to mask up, or being caught putting on a mask - when they think they can't be seen doing so - immediately before they come on stage for a press conference etc. Or in yet another example, Boris Johnson apparently hosted a maskless boozy party with loads of people some time last Christmas. Add to that Professor Neil Ferguson gallivanting across London for a bunk up with his mistress in private at the same time as arguing for harsh lockdowns in public (the same chap has been quoted as admitting pretty much that masks do nothing to stop the virus, and are merely there to keep us afraid and demoralised - can't find the quote now, surprise surprise, as searching on Google merely returns 1 bazillion pages of pro vaccine propaganda). So lethal a virus that we need to be reminded it exists. Wow. Or recall former Health Secretary Matt Hancock merrily copping off with his mistress at the same time as going home to his wife and family. If this genuinely were such a super scary virus none of these things would be happening. The masks are there purely to terrify and dehumanise people, and they do not work in stopping the spread of the virus. The official advice did a 180 swivel around March 2020 from 'masks don't work' to 'wear the mask or else', around the same time as WHO etc. changed the definition of vaccine and herd immunity. Nothing to see here though of course. All completely above board. I'm obviously a mad conspiracy theorist for noticing these types of discrepancies. Trust the science comrade!

thedevelopnik 5y ago
Love the part where you take the example of Boris Johnson and his staff, and instead of going “What wrong-headed idiots,” you instead somehow take away “It’s the epidemiologists who are wrong-headed idiots!” There are plenty of political leaders who have treated the virus casually and died. Yes, many of them are hypocrites who say one thing publically and do another. I just have no idea who you get from your first paragraph to your second. Yes, your third paragraph. Literally.
- an9n 5y ago
  Explain the changing of definitions by the WHO then please. Just that alone.

vadfa 5y ago

Masks work. I don't dispute that. I just don't want to wear one for the rest of my life. I don't want my government telling me what to wear. I got vaccinated months ago because I thought that would be the end of masks. That was the entire point of vaccinating: not needing a mask because the virus could do nothing to you. The vaccination rate in my country is almost 80% and we still have a mask mandate. I will not even consider taking a booster until they do away with the mask.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
While I agree with your general sentiment, saying "I will not even consider taking a booster until they do away with the mask" seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Wouldn't you want to get a booster just to lower your risk of getting a potentially severe illness?
- ldehaan 5y ago
  Aww look, a coward.
- vadfa 5y ago
  That is not necessary because I'm forced to wear a mask. If we are forced to wear masks, it's because masks work. Right? On the other hand, I fell ill for an entire day after taking the second dose, and I refuse to go through that again.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - dsauerbrun 5y ago
    I don't think it's binary like that(I'm willing to be proven wrong). Vaccines are effective at preventing infection and particularly severe infections. Masks are only effective at preventing you spreading your own infection. If you wear an n95 it will prevent you from getting infected but there is user error involved in tightness/compliance/etc.... My understanding has been that vaccines are more effective at preventing infection than masks so if you're picking between the two for your own safety, it would seem that the vaccine is the better choice for yourself. I will agree with you that the side effects from the vaccine are certainly a counter-argument for getting a booster every 6 months(or whenever a variant comes out that needs a different vaccine). I got mine last month and was asking myself, "I am pretty fit, in my 30's, I work from home, and my leisure activities are all outdoors(running/hiking/climbing)... Am I just going to get knocked out for 1-2 days every 6 months when my perceived risk level of catching covid is so low?" My hope is that we're spending time working on better vaccines with fewer side-effects. If the side-effects are like the flu shot i'll gladly get a booster whenever needed without thinking twice.

snarf21 5y ago

It is a shame that someone turned a health crisis into a political issue.

digitalsushi 5y ago
When people don't have the crayons and pencils they need to express themselves, they will reach for what is available.
- geoduck14 5y ago
  Is this a jab at a particular political group? It sounds really deep

timr 5y ago

> I live in Japan and everyone here wears a mask, but more importantly, wears them properly I lived in Japan, and have many friends in Japan. This is true only if you redefine "properly" to exclude all indoor environments. People in Japan routinely gather inside without masks, then put them on when they go outside. You can watch the TV news and see people gathered in bars and restaurants with masks off, but then they wear them religiously while walking around the city. Absolutely pointless behavior. I see this behavior amongst my own friends regularly on Instagram and Facebook. Moreover, it's fairly common to see things like "chin masks", like this: https://zqxkk1h5ljq1vh5rd1kit5ok-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Chin-Up-Transparent-Fase-Mask-Extra-Nose-Coverage-9.jpg https://zqxkk1h5ljq1vh5rd1kit5ok-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-... I'm not sure what these are supposed to be doing, exactly, but sure, I guess people are "wearing masks". > Many Japanese people are already attuned to wearing them during flu season, and everyone wears them if they think they are getting a cold This wasn't even close to true, pre-pandemic. I was regularly sandwiched between people on trains with obvious head colds, sniffing their snot every 5 seconds. Sure, some people wore masks, but it wasn't "everyone". Not by a long shot. > Masks are, of course, effective. This is an assertion. The best available data from randomized controlled trials shows a minimal effect: https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk-of-covid19-by https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk... > Masks work. Repeating this phrase, without evidence, does not make it true. Even ignoring the top-line RCT evidence, you have to define what you mean by "masks" to get close to a meaningful statement -- a chin shield is obviously nothing like a cloth mask, is nothing like a full-face respirator.

dkonofalski 5y ago
This thread looks like it's being astro-turfed by supporters of Vinay Prasad and the nonsense he keeps peddling. There are plenty of studies showing that masks work and that they reduce transmission and spread and there are even studies that show that mask mandates have a drastic positive effect in limiting community transmission and spread.
- timr 5y ago
  "Astroturfed"...that's hilarious. I'm a real person. I've been on the site for years. I think for myself and read and interpret data. Big Vinay Prasad is not paying me to come here and spread the gospel of randomized controlled trials and rigorous science. If you disagree with the data, you're more than welcome to bring rigorous arguments to the debate, and not merely propaganda. > There are plenty of studies showing that masks work and that they reduce transmission and spread and there are even studies that show that mask mandates have a drastic positive effect in limiting community transmission and spread. And, as noted, the vast majority of those "studies" are terrible, and the good studies show the opposite. This is not a game of collecting "papers", and the side with the most papers wins. They're not monopoly money or science points. You have to read them and understand the details. A paper that uses biased or flawed methodology (i.e. most mask studies) is useless for drawing conclusions.

belorn 5y ago

In Japan, how long can you keep a minimum distance of 1,5 meter or greater to any other human being while outside your home? Japan is not exactly known for its low population density, nor having a young population. I think most would agree that if they weren't effective in any situation then hospitals wouldn't had used them before the pandemic. The question has thus never been about if mask works, as obvious they do, but rather at what level of risk that they start being more effective than background noise. If I traveled to Japan I would distinctly wear a n95 mask both on the plane (a small tube of recycled air with minimal distance to each other for a long period of time), and inside Japan when near people. I wouldn't however go out to work/school if I felt like I was getting a cold, even if culturally people would look down on me for missing work. I can imagine that the social pressure would increase the general risk and thus masks would be a useful mitigation tactic.

kypro 5y ago

Obviously they work. Washing your hands works. Not having face to face contact with other humans works. The issue I think most people have is whether the data supports various health mandates and whether in the long run they'll actually have any impact. Even if the data is supports the claim that masks reduce spread, the data is less clear on if it's an effective means to combat a pandemic. Specifically, will masks limit the total number COVID cases given enough time, or just slow the time it takes for everyone in the population to be infected? An argument could be made that slowing spread gives time for vaccines and antivirals to be developed, in turn limiting cases and deaths, but this argument would then also depend on data and safety in regards to current / future vaccines and antivirals. > The people who DON'T want to wear them and who wish to make it a political act will dredge up all sorts of B.S studies I do get your annoyance here. I know a couple of people who don't just disagree with the concept of mask mandates, but also seem to be basing their opinion on some of the "B.S studies" you're referring to. I don't think this is the majority though. Most people just don't like being told what to do, especially when the benefits of mask mandates is probably quite negligible given they don't offer full protection, won't stop the pandemic, and the fact a lot (the majority?) of people will wear masks simply because they're recommended. I guess I sort of see it as similar to drinking alcohol or eating doughnuts. The data is pretty clear these things are bad and causing people to die in huge numbers, but the bar at which the government should step in and say you must or can't do something should probably be quite high. And in the case of mask mandates their effectiveness depends massively on the mask itself and how the wearer is wearing and using it. I've been at the store and had people cough right next to me in thin fabric masks while mandates were in place. I'm not even sure an effective mask mandate is possible, they certainly haven't given me much more comfort. Were I more concerned about COVID I'd personally be avoiding social contact as much as possible regardless of mask mandates. So yeah, masks work. People should wear them. I usually wear one in public. But the risk of COVID and their effectiveness doesn't justify mandating them imo.

yebyen 5y ago
> Most people just don't like being told what to do Bingo. I live in a "blue part" of red Indiana and this is the conclusion I've come to as well. It's extremely frustrating knowing that masks work when everyone wears them, but you are basically powerless to make a change when 90% of the people around you don't wear a mask at all, and 9 of 10 remaining folks that do wear one aren't wearing it correctly. I imagine that most of my neighbors are good folks that want to do something to help, but you can't control the people around you. If we could simply grant that "we don't like being told what to do" at the outset of the argument, I think we'd get a lot further in the national conversation. But "you can't tell me what to do" isn't a winning legal argument, so we get religious objections, and bogus "harm of the vaccine" studies with even more outrageous arguments, simply because those people who didn't like the idea of a mandate are smart enough to know they actually stand a chance in court with those arguments.

ldehaan 5y ago

Of course the most scared conformist is at the top. You have no idea what you're talking about. I'm sus that you've even lived in Japan for any amount of time. Also masks don't work, living in another country isn't proof, it just means that Japanese are super conformist. Duh.

stronglikedan 5y ago

I don't wear them because they fog up my glasses, and I can't talk for more than a few seconds without gasping for air. Fitting them properly makes both annoyances much worse. I'm not saying they're not effective, but the trade-off for such a small amount of efficacy is just not worth it for me. One thing I've noticed is that, when I try to explain this to pro-mask people, they're the ones that try to make it political. Most just cannot accept that there are non-political reasons for someone to not want to wear a mask.