12 ms·

Notably the paper that they refer to does not actually count infections it is all about meta analysis, and simulation and particle size etc No actual control

Notably the paper that they refer to does not actually count infections it is all about meta analysis, and simulation and particle size etc No actual controlled evaluation that measured protection against the actual infection has ever found effect remotely as strong as claimed here - and sometimes the opposite is found. Yes, mask may work in some circumstances, but everyone wearing them all the time in social settings? The issue is far from settled. As an example Austria has mandated N95 masks since Summer, people, store clerks take it seriously and actually enforce them. Been there myself and seen/experienced that myself. Is Austria on a different track when it comes to the epidemic? Not really. Where is the 75x protection?

rgrieselhuber 5y ago
What is the denominator?
burlesona 5y ago
Why isn’t there more protection shown? Is it people not wearing the masks well? Or not wearing them consistently? One thing I’ve thought was ludicrous since the beginning of the pandemic was the idea that you should mask in a restaurant “except while eating.” That’s comically stupid. I understand we love our restaurants and don’t want them all going out of business (and that huge workforce being unemployed!), but there’s no point fooling yourself, if you aren’t going to wear the mask the whole time when you go somewhere then there’s really no point.
- irishloop 5y ago
  But risk isn't a 1/0 binary. Every moment you are wearing a mask changes your risk. Spending 1 hour in a restaurant vs 10 hours in a restaurant. It all adds up and it all matters. So yeah, taking your mask off while you eat is definitely going to raise your risk. But not as much as simply not wearing a mask the entire time you're in a restaurant, moving around, getting closer to people and different areas of the restaurant, which probably all have variable particles in the air, etc.
  - xboxnolifes 5y ago
    Risk isn't binary. But constantly taking your mask on and off has risks of its own from touching and rubbing. Similar to not touching your face with your hands to avoid germs, you should not be touching your mask frequently.
  - strogonoff 5y ago
    > So yeah, taking your mask off while you eat is definitely going to raise your risk. I don’t think that’s usually how it works. A regular mask is good at “curbing the fanout” so to speak, but not so great at filtering incoming air. Taking your mask off while you eat is going to raise the risk for everybody around you—unless you use an N95 mask or similar equipment (and use it properly), what your mask does is mostly in fact protecting bystanders from asymptomatic COVID that you may have acquired by restricting outgoing airflow and virions within. Now consider real life, where not everyone wears masks, and my guess is depending on where you are easily less than 10% of mask-wearers wear masks properly. They don’t wear masks over their nose, leave huge gaps between the mask and their face, take off their mask to sneeze or cough (I kid you not). They try to make it easier to breathe, and by extension defeat the point of wearing a mask. Unsurprisingly, masks is the easiest and cheapest measure to be taken, compared to e.g. auditing and upgrading air circulation infrastructure. Unsurprisingly, in many cultures people who think that the mask protects them and don’t know about asymptomatic COVID choose not to wear a mask because they bravely don’t care if they get sick. Unsurprisingly, for the rest of us there’s very little point in being the one-in-ten person wearing a mask in what is a fluid exchange fest anyway. Unsurprisingly, as a result people tend to not wear masks if they can get away with it, and restaurant owners and other people in charge of enforcing the measure on their territory would instruct staff to let things slip rather than alienate their patrons over a seemingly useless measure. Meanwhile, masks are not free. Both in terms of money, and in terms of wellbeing. A properly worn mask necessarily obstructs breathing. One risks becoming infected by their own mask which accumulates virions in circulation (and if you do rotate your mask, an argument could be made that reduced exposure to viruses long-term may weaken the immune system—though I’m not sure if there were studies to support or refute that). Nevertheless, a measure has been taken, and local policymakers may now rest with a false sense of security.
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  I don't know (and I'm not defending this validation, as I take issue with a number of premises) but my understanding of the justification is that restaurants can relatively easily space out/put dividers up between their tables (such that risk of transmission between parties at different tables is lower), but that no such accommodation can be made easily for the aisles, bathrooms, bar, and other intermediate spaces. Thus the rule, which around here is "wear a mask if you aren't seated at your table". Given how restaurants around here are still packing people in, though, one has to assume that the initial table-spacing premise is compromised, undermining the whole endeavor.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    The dividers are pretty silly if the virus is as airborne as is now believed.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      They are. But limiting the number of people you’ve been potentially exposed to to just the people directly next to you is obviously safer than being exposed to every person between your table and the bathroom/exit.
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        If it's airborne, you're exposed to all of the people in the facility, and all of the people in it within the last few hours. The dividers likely make minimal if any difference.
        ashtonkem 5y ago
        sigh I didn’t say that the dividers help. I in fact explicitly agreed with you that they’re useless. That being said, the virus isn’t magically going to fill the entire space equally from one infected person. There is a distance factor involved, and the closer you are unmasked the higher your risk. So only unmasking at your table cuts your risk pool down to the tables immediately proximate to you, rather than everyone you walked by, and anyone you shared the bathroom with. It’s not as safe as staying home, but it’s better than being unmasked the entire time. Oh, and the risk isn’t going to hang around hours after the fact, unless if you’re in a completely unventilated space. Commercial restaurants change their air over a recommended 8 times an hour.
- j2bax 5y ago
  Standing in a crowded waiting area is ≠ sitting at a spaced out table maybe with a divider between you and the other tables.
  - bmeski 5y ago
    The particles are floating around in the air. They don’t hit the glass and turn around and go home, they continue to float and a draft or whatever will disperse the particles throughout the room. Who gets to decide what size interior is ok? Or what crowded is? It’s all arbitrary and you all fell for it. Just let omicron spread, accept it’s another seasonal flu, and move the fuck on.
    - j2bax 5y ago
      To be fair, I wasn't referring to my own personal risk tolerance but I guess trying to explain a seemingly arbitrary rule... I haven't eaten at a sit down for the last two years because I have small children and expecting them to follow any sort of strict masking protocol is unrealistic. I also have multiple close family members who work in ICU and healthcare and I really don't think you want Omicron to spread faster than it needs to... That's an extremely shallow selfish mindset. Edit: Just wanted to share an article from yesterday on the state of hospitals. I have friends/family that are super badass just like you, until they get in a car accident and need a bed at the ER. All the sudden shit gets a little more real and personal... https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/01/11/1071568846/u-s-covid-hospitalizations-hit-new-record-high-raising-risks-for-patients https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/01/11/1071568...
  - notabee 5y ago
    Here's a good infographic from a country with a seemingly better public information response. It talks about both droplets and aerosols. Simply put: dividers don't help much with aerosols, or may concentrate the particles from multiple users of the same space. http://aerosol.nsysu.edu.tw/en/scopes/108 http://aerosol.nsysu.edu.tw/en/scopes/108
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  I’ve never really understood why people are confused by the eating thing. The point is obviously harm reduction, not harm elimination. If you’re going to eat out, it’s obviously better to not get exposed to every single person you walked by when you’re not doing an activity that’s impossible with a mask on. This has always been extremely obvious to me, and a natural consequence of trying to keep restaurants open and case loads down. Now at various points I’ve wondered why restaurants were open, but that’s a different discussion.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    >The point is obviously harm reduction, not harm elimination. Or the point is theater. If you're going to have indoor dining--and most places have made that decision--people can't wear masks when they're eating and drinking. And the relatively small number of times I've been eating inside it's pretty obvious that wearing a mask between the door and your table almost certainly makes a negligible difference in risk.
- nomel 5y ago
  I’ve always assumed the virus can enter the body through the eyes, who’s tear ducts lead to the nasal passages.
  - aaronharnly 5y ago
    Yes. Some physicians I know now wear goggles, or glasses with foam fittings kind of like swim goggles.
- psychlops 5y ago
  It's an effective way to continue to collect tax revenue while maintaining the illusion of control. Don't point it out or it will spawn a series of conversations where people endlessly divide and multiply statistically negligible percentages.
- peder 5y ago
  Could it be something as simple as ignoring that we're all touching our masks, our clothing, our eyes. Basically, did we optimize one part of the problem while ignoring all others and the net effect is basically zero?
rimliu 5y ago
This is so annoying. They measure X and then claim that effect is Y. Which was not measured at all.
kube-system 5y ago
Austria requires FFP2 which is not quite as strict of a standard as NIOSH N95. At the 95+% filtering rate, it’s really the mask’s fit that is making or breaking filtering ability. N95 masks fit very tightly, come in different shapes and sizes to fit different people, and will leave imprint marks on a persons face. This is beyond what the general public is really willing to go through, so they’re really not used many places outside of medical settings, and it’s not really realistic to have them properly fit tested by the general public. We do have real world data to show that properly fit tested N95s work very well when used by trained people, from the hospital settings in which this is done. But like any equipment, it’s only as good as it is used properly. It may very well be possible that leaking FFP2 masks aren’t much different than other masks in effectiveness against highly transmissible variants.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  I wear N95, but... I have a beard. I'm painfully aware I'm sabotaging my own efforts and do not have a perfect seal.
  - dpark 5y ago
    I’m amazed at the number of people I see wearing N95s or KN95s with a clear gap at the top. Why bother?
    - kube-system 5y ago
      I have a collection of various 94+% masks that I amassed towards the beginning of the pandemic. About 6 or 7 types. Only 1 of them doesn’t fog my glasses in the winter (and it’s a freakin Honeywell respirator) That means all of the others are leaking, even when I wear them “properly”
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        Water vapor is a lot smaller than viral particles and is likely to pass through even a N95 mask, which is good, as you'd drown pretty quickly if it didn't. I wouldn't read too much into fogging. (That said, I do wish there were better options for people with giant noses like mine.)
afavour 5y ago
> Is Austria on a different track when it comes to the epidemic? Not really. Where is the 75x protection? Well, the article claims 75x protection when you wear an N95 mask. Are all families in Austria wearing N95 masks when at home with each other? I doubt it. Unfortunately there are many, many opportunities for infection: like at school/daycare/work then bringing it home to your family. Wearing a mask while shopping is probably a good thing (it certainly can't hurt!) but 75x mask protection is never going to lead to 75x fewer COVID cases.
mfer 5y ago
If you read the book "The Design of Everyday Things" you'll find a chapter on error. Human error is a thing and if it's a common error it's a design error. N95 masks need to be worn correctly. If we wear them improperly they loose their ability to do their jobs. Nurses I know have had training classes on wearing them properly. It's not obvious or just works. I was in a school board virtual meeting earlier this year. When it came to the open comment period in the meeting a nurse go on and politely shared the number of times the school board members and errored in their use of the masks. So often the mask guidelines and expectations of their effectiveness are based on the assumptions people will wear them properly. Sadly, that's just not the case.
- 323 5y ago
  > If we wear them improperly they loose their ability to do their jobs That's not true. They will just have lower efficiency. This study itself tested the effect of not fitting the mask (not even adjusting the metal nose bridge), and the effect was not dramatic. It's like saying "if you don't wear your mask 100% of the time, you might as well not wear it at all, since you could be infected in the 1% of the time you don't wear it.
  - throw_nbvc1234 5y ago
    > "if you don't wear your mask 100% of the time, you might as well not wear it at all, since you could be infected in the 1% of the time you don't wear it. This all depends on what the goal is. If your goal is to mitigate individual risk then 99% is better then 0%. If your goal is to never be exposed to the virus (immunocompromised, can't be vaxxed, comorbidity, etc...) then you arguably should not participate in something that requires you to remove your mask in public even 1% of the time. If you're a government trying to limit spread/hospital load then even something 20% effective will have an impact across an entire population.
    - usrusr 5y ago
      If the virus you're dealing with is so incompetent at spreading as those strains from early 2020 were that almost failed to reach R=1 despite being fully airborne (which we now know, but back then even experts fell for "airborne spread could not possibly be as slow as we observe!"), even something like 5% effective can be a swim or sink difference for the virus. That said, we are now in the omicron era and things are very different now (masks are a weak but nonetheless important tool for the project of "please take turns with sick leave, thank you very much", and nothing more, nothing less)
323 5y ago
> No actual controlled evaluation that measured protection against the actual infection has ever found effect remotely as strong Such a study does exist: > Upgrading face masks to filtering face piece (FFP3) respirators for healthcare workers on covid-19 wards produced a dramatic reduction in hospital acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections, according to research carried out at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. > Once FFP3 respirators were introduced [as opposed to simple surgical masks], the number of cases attributed to exposure on covid-19 wards dropped dramatically—in fact, our model suggests that FFP3 respirators may have cut ward based infection to zero. https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1663 https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1663
saiya-jin 5y ago
Its dumb approach when you look at it from a bit bigger distance. The solution to protection isn't just focusing hard on as-good-as-possible masks. People do mistakes with masks (often intentional), forget to wash hand after firmly holding door handle that was touched by 1000 other hands on that day. People have small kids which is a vector you have practically no control over. People do family visits where all masks go off. Folks go to restaurants and as soon as they have drinks everybody acts like covid disappeared suddenly. I firmly believe average human is simply not mentally equipped to keep constant vigilance and cover all potential routes. It tires everybody rather quickly. As for N95 masks, neighboring Slovakia has them mandated for quite some time too and it didn't prevent them being 2nd worst globally in new cases few months back. Why? Well 50% of population not vaccinated is a good start. Opposition politicians in good old Trump manner attacking any covid measure government puts in or science in general, generating a large pool of antivaxxers over time. Bravo, that's one sure way to get a lot of blood on your hands without ever pulling a trigger. I really see omicron as kind of godsend within limits of current situation - I would cancel all measures and open everything, brace for a month and let it run through populations. This prolonged agony and ineffective lockdowns that prolong general agony ad infinitum wreak havoc on kids and tons of professions, and frankly on almost everybody in some way.
- bmeski 5y ago
  Also in general who the fuck wants to live thinking about a mask all the time?
vngzs 5y ago
Also notable is that proper use of an N95 takes training. Unlike with surgical masks, N95 fit is specific (you normally get them sized when issued at a hospital). In addition, most people have bad habits around mask removal - you should always remove masks by the bands, but people tend to touch the mask surface itself. And with any mask removal, you should always wash your hands (in a particular manner that I'm sure readers are familiar with by now). Finally if, when removing a mask, the user touches the interior of the mask after touching an infected surface then reapplying the mask can lead to infection. Not doing any of these steps can lead to infections. Simply issuing N95s to a general population might not help, if the population is improperly trained. Surgical masks "work" by preventing the wearer from spreading diseases to others. In aggregate, this can help a population, but in specific cases it might not protect you. N95s work by protecting the wearer, with only secondary benefits to others (the N95s with "nozzles" on the mask surface provide no protection to other parties, as outflow is unfiltered).
- tablespoon 5y ago
  The fit thing is difficult, because actually do it properly requires specialized equipment. But for the general population, worrying about that may be letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The rest of it is actually pretty easy to learn. Here's a two-minute video that explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoxpvDVo_NI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoxpvDVo_NI
  - vngzs 5y ago
    In case anyone is interested, the fit test procedures are documented here: https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/252309O/3m-adflo-qualitative-fit-test-apparatus-ft-10-ft-30.pdf https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/252309O/3m-adflo-qualita...
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      IIRC, that's one of the two methods they use. The "qualitative" gives a binary result, but there are also "quantitative" methods that measure the the actual filtration efficiency with the fit. That qualitative test kit is probably the cheapest, but it still costs still hundreds of dollars. Though I imagine that's mainly due to low-volume production, since it doesn't seem that complicated.
bpfrh 5y ago
I don't think you can take one number and then say that X measure is wrong. AGES says that over 60% of infections where in a private setting, e.g. the kids/parents get sick and then they meet friends. https://www.ages.at/themen/krankheitserreger/coronavirus/epidemiologische-abklaerung-covid-19 https://www.ages.at/themen/krankheitserreger/coronavirus/epi... So it seems that the ffp2 measures are working.
ls15 5y ago
> Yes, mask may work in some circumstances, but everyone wearing them all the time in social settings? I found it pretty obvious almost two years ago already that N95s are pretty good at filtering particles (even smaller than rated) and that most people are pretty bad at using them consistently. Further evidence is great, but I wonder if people really are surprised to find this out. One thing should have been obvious to everyone at all times: You cannot eat while you wear a mask. People take their masks off all the time to have a meal together. What's the point of wearing a mask for the rest of the day then?
s_dev 5y ago
>Is Austria on a different track when it comes to the epidemic? Austria and Switzerland have shockingly high vaccine skepticism rates when compared with other advanced European countries like Ireland or Denmark. I have no explanation for why this just that when they were measuring vaccine skepticism Switzerland and Austria were up there with Romania and Bulgaria and I was spitting out my coffee at the chart. So it could be N95 masks are effective but other mechanisms are letting down these populations.
- the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
  > Switzerland and Austria were up there with Romania and Bulgaria Austria has 73% of the population fully vaccinated, Switzerland 67%, the US 62%. Romania has 41% and Bulgaria 28%. Not at all the same.
raducu 5y ago
New variants are much more contagious, people don't wear masks all the time.
viktorcode 5y ago
Not wearing masks in all social settings is more a cultural thing than anything else. Just take a look at the streets of Tokyo now: someone without a mask is a pretty uncommon sight.

rgrieselhuber 5y ago

What is the denominator?

burlesona 5y ago

Why isn’t there more protection shown? Is it people not wearing the masks well? Or not wearing them consistently? One thing I’ve thought was ludicrous since the beginning of the pandemic was the idea that you should mask in a restaurant “except while eating.” That’s comically stupid. I understand we love our restaurants and don’t want them all going out of business (and that huge workforce being unemployed!), but there’s no point fooling yourself, if you aren’t going to wear the mask the whole time when you go somewhere then there’s really no point.

irishloop 5y ago
But risk isn't a 1/0 binary. Every moment you are wearing a mask changes your risk. Spending 1 hour in a restaurant vs 10 hours in a restaurant. It all adds up and it all matters. So yeah, taking your mask off while you eat is definitely going to raise your risk. But not as much as simply not wearing a mask the entire time you're in a restaurant, moving around, getting closer to people and different areas of the restaurant, which probably all have variable particles in the air, etc.
- xboxnolifes 5y ago
  Risk isn't binary. But constantly taking your mask on and off has risks of its own from touching and rubbing. Similar to not touching your face with your hands to avoid germs, you should not be touching your mask frequently.
- strogonoff 5y ago
  > So yeah, taking your mask off while you eat is definitely going to raise your risk. I don’t think that’s usually how it works. A regular mask is good at “curbing the fanout” so to speak, but not so great at filtering incoming air. Taking your mask off while you eat is going to raise the risk for everybody around you—unless you use an N95 mask or similar equipment (and use it properly), what your mask does is mostly in fact protecting bystanders from asymptomatic COVID that you may have acquired by restricting outgoing airflow and virions within. Now consider real life, where not everyone wears masks, and my guess is depending on where you are easily less than 10% of mask-wearers wear masks properly. They don’t wear masks over their nose, leave huge gaps between the mask and their face, take off their mask to sneeze or cough (I kid you not). They try to make it easier to breathe, and by extension defeat the point of wearing a mask. Unsurprisingly, masks is the easiest and cheapest measure to be taken, compared to e.g. auditing and upgrading air circulation infrastructure. Unsurprisingly, in many cultures people who think that the mask protects them and don’t know about asymptomatic COVID choose not to wear a mask because they bravely don’t care if they get sick. Unsurprisingly, for the rest of us there’s very little point in being the one-in-ten person wearing a mask in what is a fluid exchange fest anyway. Unsurprisingly, as a result people tend to not wear masks if they can get away with it, and restaurant owners and other people in charge of enforcing the measure on their territory would instruct staff to let things slip rather than alienate their patrons over a seemingly useless measure. Meanwhile, masks are not free. Both in terms of money, and in terms of wellbeing. A properly worn mask necessarily obstructs breathing. One risks becoming infected by their own mask which accumulates virions in circulation (and if you do rotate your mask, an argument could be made that reduced exposure to viruses long-term may weaken the immune system—though I’m not sure if there were studies to support or refute that). Nevertheless, a measure has been taken, and local policymakers may now rest with a false sense of security.
InitialLastName 5y ago
I don't know (and I'm not defending this validation, as I take issue with a number of premises) but my understanding of the justification is that restaurants can relatively easily space out/put dividers up between their tables (such that risk of transmission between parties at different tables is lower), but that no such accommodation can be made easily for the aisles, bathrooms, bar, and other intermediate spaces. Thus the rule, which around here is "wear a mask if you aren't seated at your table". Given how restaurants around here are still packing people in, though, one has to assume that the initial table-spacing premise is compromised, undermining the whole endeavor.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  The dividers are pretty silly if the virus is as airborne as is now believed.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    They are. But limiting the number of people you’ve been potentially exposed to to just the people directly next to you is obviously safer than being exposed to every person between your table and the bathroom/exit.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      If it's airborne, you're exposed to all of the people in the facility, and all of the people in it within the last few hours. The dividers likely make minimal if any difference.
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        sigh I didn’t say that the dividers help. I in fact explicitly agreed with you that they’re useless. That being said, the virus isn’t magically going to fill the entire space equally from one infected person. There is a distance factor involved, and the closer you are unmasked the higher your risk. So only unmasking at your table cuts your risk pool down to the tables immediately proximate to you, rather than everyone you walked by, and anyone you shared the bathroom with. It’s not as safe as staying home, but it’s better than being unmasked the entire time. Oh, and the risk isn’t going to hang around hours after the fact, unless if you’re in a completely unventilated space. Commercial restaurants change their air over a recommended 8 times an hour.
j2bax 5y ago
Standing in a crowded waiting area is ≠ sitting at a spaced out table maybe with a divider between you and the other tables.
- bmeski 5y ago
  The particles are floating around in the air. They don’t hit the glass and turn around and go home, they continue to float and a draft or whatever will disperse the particles throughout the room. Who gets to decide what size interior is ok? Or what crowded is? It’s all arbitrary and you all fell for it. Just let omicron spread, accept it’s another seasonal flu, and move the fuck on.
  - j2bax 5y ago
    To be fair, I wasn't referring to my own personal risk tolerance but I guess trying to explain a seemingly arbitrary rule... I haven't eaten at a sit down for the last two years because I have small children and expecting them to follow any sort of strict masking protocol is unrealistic. I also have multiple close family members who work in ICU and healthcare and I really don't think you want Omicron to spread faster than it needs to... That's an extremely shallow selfish mindset. Edit: Just wanted to share an article from yesterday on the state of hospitals. I have friends/family that are super badass just like you, until they get in a car accident and need a bed at the ER. All the sudden shit gets a little more real and personal... https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/01/11/1071568846/u-s-covid-hospitalizations-hit-new-record-high-raising-risks-for-patients https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/01/11/1071568...
- notabee 5y ago
  Here's a good infographic from a country with a seemingly better public information response. It talks about both droplets and aerosols. Simply put: dividers don't help much with aerosols, or may concentrate the particles from multiple users of the same space. http://aerosol.nsysu.edu.tw/en/scopes/108 http://aerosol.nsysu.edu.tw/en/scopes/108
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ashtonkem 5y ago
I’ve never really understood why people are confused by the eating thing. The point is obviously harm reduction, not harm elimination. If you’re going to eat out, it’s obviously better to not get exposed to every single person you walked by when you’re not doing an activity that’s impossible with a mask on. This has always been extremely obvious to me, and a natural consequence of trying to keep restaurants open and case loads down. Now at various points I’ve wondered why restaurants were open, but that’s a different discussion.
- ghaff 5y ago
  >The point is obviously harm reduction, not harm elimination. Or the point is theater. If you're going to have indoor dining--and most places have made that decision--people can't wear masks when they're eating and drinking. And the relatively small number of times I've been eating inside it's pretty obvious that wearing a mask between the door and your table almost certainly makes a negligible difference in risk.
nomel 5y ago
I’ve always assumed the virus can enter the body through the eyes, who’s tear ducts lead to the nasal passages.
- aaronharnly 5y ago
  Yes. Some physicians I know now wear goggles, or glasses with foam fittings kind of like swim goggles.
psychlops 5y ago
It's an effective way to continue to collect tax revenue while maintaining the illusion of control. Don't point it out or it will spawn a series of conversations where people endlessly divide and multiply statistically negligible percentages.
peder 5y ago
Could it be something as simple as ignoring that we're all touching our masks, our clothing, our eyes. Basically, did we optimize one part of the problem while ignoring all others and the net effect is basically zero?

rimliu 5y ago

This is so annoying. They measure X and then claim that effect is Y. Which was not measured at all.

kube-system 5y ago

Austria requires FFP2 which is not quite as strict of a standard as NIOSH N95. At the 95+% filtering rate, it’s really the mask’s fit that is making or breaking filtering ability. N95 masks fit very tightly, come in different shapes and sizes to fit different people, and will leave imprint marks on a persons face. This is beyond what the general public is really willing to go through, so they’re really not used many places outside of medical settings, and it’s not really realistic to have them properly fit tested by the general public. We do have real world data to show that properly fit tested N95s work very well when used by trained people, from the hospital settings in which this is done. But like any equipment, it’s only as good as it is used properly. It may very well be possible that leaking FFP2 masks aren’t much different than other masks in effectiveness against highly transmissible variants.

NikolaNovak 5y ago
I wear N95, but... I have a beard. I'm painfully aware I'm sabotaging my own efforts and do not have a perfect seal.
- dpark 5y ago
  I’m amazed at the number of people I see wearing N95s or KN95s with a clear gap at the top. Why bother?
  - kube-system 5y ago
    I have a collection of various 94+% masks that I amassed towards the beginning of the pandemic. About 6 or 7 types. Only 1 of them doesn’t fog my glasses in the winter (and it’s a freakin Honeywell respirator) That means all of the others are leaking, even when I wear them “properly”
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      Water vapor is a lot smaller than viral particles and is likely to pass through even a N95 mask, which is good, as you'd drown pretty quickly if it didn't. I wouldn't read too much into fogging. (That said, I do wish there were better options for people with giant noses like mine.)

afavour 5y ago

> Is Austria on a different track when it comes to the epidemic? Not really. Where is the 75x protection? Well, the article claims 75x protection when you wear an N95 mask. Are all families in Austria wearing N95 masks when at home with each other? I doubt it. Unfortunately there are many, many opportunities for infection: like at school/daycare/work then bringing it home to your family. Wearing a mask while shopping is probably a good thing (it certainly can't hurt!) but 75x mask protection is never going to lead to 75x fewer COVID cases.

mfer 5y ago

If you read the book "The Design of Everyday Things" you'll find a chapter on error. Human error is a thing and if it's a common error it's a design error. N95 masks need to be worn correctly. If we wear them improperly they loose their ability to do their jobs. Nurses I know have had training classes on wearing them properly. It's not obvious or just works. I was in a school board virtual meeting earlier this year. When it came to the open comment period in the meeting a nurse go on and politely shared the number of times the school board members and errored in their use of the masks. So often the mask guidelines and expectations of their effectiveness are based on the assumptions people will wear them properly. Sadly, that's just not the case.

323 5y ago
> If we wear them improperly they loose their ability to do their jobs That's not true. They will just have lower efficiency. This study itself tested the effect of not fitting the mask (not even adjusting the metal nose bridge), and the effect was not dramatic. It's like saying "if you don't wear your mask 100% of the time, you might as well not wear it at all, since you could be infected in the 1% of the time you don't wear it.
- throw_nbvc1234 5y ago
  > "if you don't wear your mask 100% of the time, you might as well not wear it at all, since you could be infected in the 1% of the time you don't wear it. This all depends on what the goal is. If your goal is to mitigate individual risk then 99% is better then 0%. If your goal is to never be exposed to the virus (immunocompromised, can't be vaxxed, comorbidity, etc...) then you arguably should not participate in something that requires you to remove your mask in public even 1% of the time. If you're a government trying to limit spread/hospital load then even something 20% effective will have an impact across an entire population.
  - usrusr 5y ago
    If the virus you're dealing with is so incompetent at spreading as those strains from early 2020 were that almost failed to reach R=1 despite being fully airborne (which we now know, but back then even experts fell for "airborne spread could not possibly be as slow as we observe!"), even something like 5% effective can be a swim or sink difference for the virus. That said, we are now in the omicron era and things are very different now (masks are a weak but nonetheless important tool for the project of "please take turns with sick leave, thank you very much", and nothing more, nothing less)

323 5y ago

> No actual controlled evaluation that measured protection against the actual infection has ever found effect remotely as strong Such a study does exist: > Upgrading face masks to filtering face piece (FFP3) respirators for healthcare workers on covid-19 wards produced a dramatic reduction in hospital acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections, according to research carried out at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. > Once FFP3 respirators were introduced [as opposed to simple surgical masks], the number of cases attributed to exposure on covid-19 wards dropped dramatically—in fact, our model suggests that FFP3 respirators may have cut ward based infection to zero. https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1663 https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1663

saiya-jin 5y ago

Its dumb approach when you look at it from a bit bigger distance. The solution to protection isn't just focusing hard on as-good-as-possible masks. People do mistakes with masks (often intentional), forget to wash hand after firmly holding door handle that was touched by 1000 other hands on that day. People have small kids which is a vector you have practically no control over. People do family visits where all masks go off. Folks go to restaurants and as soon as they have drinks everybody acts like covid disappeared suddenly. I firmly believe average human is simply not mentally equipped to keep constant vigilance and cover all potential routes. It tires everybody rather quickly. As for N95 masks, neighboring Slovakia has them mandated for quite some time too and it didn't prevent them being 2nd worst globally in new cases few months back. Why? Well 50% of population not vaccinated is a good start. Opposition politicians in good old Trump manner attacking any covid measure government puts in or science in general, generating a large pool of antivaxxers over time. Bravo, that's one sure way to get a lot of blood on your hands without ever pulling a trigger. I really see omicron as kind of godsend within limits of current situation - I would cancel all measures and open everything, brace for a month and let it run through populations. This prolonged agony and ineffective lockdowns that prolong general agony ad infinitum wreak havoc on kids and tons of professions, and frankly on almost everybody in some way.

bmeski 5y ago
Also in general who the fuck wants to live thinking about a mask all the time?

vngzs 5y ago

Also notable is that proper use of an N95 takes training. Unlike with surgical masks, N95 fit is specific (you normally get them sized when issued at a hospital). In addition, most people have bad habits around mask removal - you should always remove masks by the bands, but people tend to touch the mask surface itself. And with any mask removal, you should always wash your hands (in a particular manner that I'm sure readers are familiar with by now). Finally if, when removing a mask, the user touches the interior of the mask after touching an infected surface then reapplying the mask can lead to infection. Not doing any of these steps can lead to infections. Simply issuing N95s to a general population might not help, if the population is improperly trained. Surgical masks "work" by preventing the wearer from spreading diseases to others. In aggregate, this can help a population, but in specific cases it might not protect you. N95s work by protecting the wearer, with only secondary benefits to others (the N95s with "nozzles" on the mask surface provide no protection to other parties, as outflow is unfiltered).

tablespoon 5y ago
The fit thing is difficult, because actually do it properly requires specialized equipment. But for the general population, worrying about that may be letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The rest of it is actually pretty easy to learn. Here's a two-minute video that explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoxpvDVo_NI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoxpvDVo_NI
- vngzs 5y ago
  In case anyone is interested, the fit test procedures are documented here: https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/252309O/3m-adflo-qualitative-fit-test-apparatus-ft-10-ft-30.pdf https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/252309O/3m-adflo-qualita...
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    IIRC, that's one of the two methods they use. The "qualitative" gives a binary result, but there are also "quantitative" methods that measure the the actual filtration efficiency with the fit. That qualitative test kit is probably the cheapest, but it still costs still hundreds of dollars. Though I imagine that's mainly due to low-volume production, since it doesn't seem that complicated.

bpfrh 5y ago

I don't think you can take one number and then say that X measure is wrong. AGES says that over 60% of infections where in a private setting, e.g. the kids/parents get sick and then they meet friends. https://www.ages.at/themen/krankheitserreger/coronavirus/epidemiologische-abklaerung-covid-19 https://www.ages.at/themen/krankheitserreger/coronavirus/epi... So it seems that the ffp2 measures are working.

ls15 5y ago

> Yes, mask may work in some circumstances, but everyone wearing them all the time in social settings? I found it pretty obvious almost two years ago already that N95s are pretty good at filtering particles (even smaller than rated) and that most people are pretty bad at using them consistently. Further evidence is great, but I wonder if people really are surprised to find this out. One thing should have been obvious to everyone at all times: You cannot eat while you wear a mask. People take their masks off all the time to have a meal together. What's the point of wearing a mask for the rest of the day then?

s_dev 5y ago

>Is Austria on a different track when it comes to the epidemic? Austria and Switzerland have shockingly high vaccine skepticism rates when compared with other advanced European countries like Ireland or Denmark. I have no explanation for why this just that when they were measuring vaccine skepticism Switzerland and Austria were up there with Romania and Bulgaria and I was spitting out my coffee at the chart. So it could be N95 masks are effective but other mechanisms are letting down these populations.

the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
> Switzerland and Austria were up there with Romania and Bulgaria Austria has 73% of the population fully vaccinated, Switzerland 67%, the US 62%. Romania has 41% and Bulgaria 28%. Not at all the same.

raducu 5y ago

New variants are much more contagious, people don't wear masks all the time.

viktorcode 5y ago

Not wearing masks in all social settings is more a cultural thing than anything else. Just take a look at the streets of Tokyo now: someone without a mask is a pretty uncommon sight.