3 ms·

I really think anything less than N95, especially since the infectiousness of delta, is more a crowd control exercise than anything else on the part of people i

by zpeti 5y ago

I really think anything less than N95, especially since the infectiousness of delta, is more a crowd control exercise than anything else on the part of people in power. No mask mandate has ever reduced the R number or growth trajectory anywhere in the world. And no study has ever confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that cloth and surgical masks work in any way against covid. KN95 perhaps, N95 definitely, but that's fairly obvious since it actually fits on your face and has a particle filter. I strongly believe this entire mask things is just a way for governments to make people feel like they are doing something. To make you feel like you are in control in a ridiculously out of control situation. I understand the reasons for doing that, but fundamentally it's still a lie.

elcomet 5y ago
> No mask mandate has ever reduced the R number or growth trajectory anywhere in the world. And no study has ever confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that cloth and surgical masks work in any way against covid. KN95 perhaps, N95 definitely, but that's fairly obvious since it actually fits on your face and has a particle filter. Could you confirm this with a study ? This seems ridiculous
- macinjosh 5y ago
  Can you tell the difference between places that had mask mandates and places that did not? https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/masks https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/masks
  - nchie 5y ago
    I don't get what the point of that quiz is. All of the example countries in it instituted their mask mandates between the first and second wave. None of them did not?
- zacharytelschow 5y ago
  This guy seems to exist to create charts that a) show vaccination does nothing to stop Omnicron, which seems to be all recent charts or b) that demographically similar states/countries that are neighbors have virtually identical results when one has a mask mandate and the other doesn't: https://twitter.com/ianmsc/ https://twitter.com/ianmsc/ Given how infectious Omnicron is, these mask mandates are nothing more than talismans.
  - nchie 5y ago
    He's doesn't seem very credible though. For example, there's a lot of very obvious reasons which could help explain this[1]. 1: https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1481042778293358593 https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1481042778293358593
blip54321 5y ago
I think the numbers I saw for cloth was a modest reduction. Surgical refers to a broad range of objects, from a slip of paper to ones with high-filtration layers. For the latter, if everyone wore them, they'd stop COVID spread. See data from Asian hospitals, Indian social workers, etc. With omicron, it's very possible only N95 reduces R0 below 1, but we don't know that yet. A lot of it is theatrics, but high-filtration masks do help, even with imperfect fit.
dannyw 5y ago
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118 https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118 > Our review of the literature offers evidence in favor of widespread mask use as source control to reduce community transmission: Nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size; people are most infectious in the initial period postinfection, where it is common to have few or no symptoms (45, 46, 141); nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses; and places and time periods where mask usage is required or widespread have shown substantially lower community transmission. Are mask mandates partly about governments wanting to show that they are doing something? Certainly. Are non-N95 masks ineffective? The evidence says they have benefit.
- zpeti 5y ago
  I've repeatedly had that study linked to me when I say stuff like this. Quote from your link: > Direct Epidemiological Evidence. > Overall, evidence from RCTs and observational studies is informative, but not compelling on its own. Both the Australian influenza RCT and the Beijing households observational trial found around 80% efficacy among compliant subjects, and the one SARS household study of sufficient power found 70% efficacy for protecting the wearer. However, we do not know whether the results from influenza or SARS will correspond to results for SARS-CoV-2, and the single observational study of SARS-CoV-2 might not be replicated in other communities. None of the studies looked specifically at cloth masks.
  - jcranberry 5y ago
    So if it has a history of working with other viruses, why would you think this is a crowd control exercise and not attempting something which has worked before?
- macinjosh 5y ago
  We should not looking for just any benefit and then if we see some, no matter how small, force everyone in society to do it. There are tradeoffs. For me as a parent masking young kids is unconscionable. Masks _scare_ my 18 month old daughter and she loses out on all the social skill building that comes with reading people's expressions.
logicalmonster 5y ago
I think human behavior needs to be taken into account when it comes to safety measures like masks. I'm sure you can design 100 lab tests to prove that masks work, but the real world reality is always going to be different: people don't wear masks (even fitted masks) correctly. Here's a short anecdote about how well-intentioned rules often work in the real world among non-trained people. While going to school to become a programmer, I worked in the food service industry. We were told to always wash our hands when shuffling between tasks: for instance when going from cutting potatoes to going to the register to handle peoples payments, we'd wash our hands thoroughly. This system was easy enough for anybody to come off the street and learn quickly and was strictly followed. One day a health inspector came by and started freaking out about this normal kitchen practice and started screeching that everybody had to wear gloves at all times. Of course anybody who understands reality knows how this turned out in the real world: pulling off and putting on gloves correctly for each task is a pain in the butt. What happened in the real world is people would put on one pair of gloves for hours, and go from working on the food to different tasks, including handling cash without changing gloves. As long as they were wearing the gloves at all times, they felt like they were doing the right thing. The reality is that people were just complying with the letter of the rule, but spreading far more dirt and bacteria around because of the rule. I don't care what laboratory theory says: the real world reality of how untrained people follow rules is different. In real-world practice, masks are (IMO heavily dehumanizing) medical theater. I think masks work great when used as they're intended: by trained health care professionals doing one task in one room and properly disposing of them. Everything else is politicians ruining our lives covering their asses so the media doesn't have some clickbait headline to rip them.
Symmetry 5y ago
It depends. Covid is a high k disease, a few people end up infecting hundreds in an afternoon, many people fail to infect the spouse they share a bed with. Partially that's behavior but partially it's people achieving very different peak viral loads as well. The protection factor of 2 or 3 you might get from a surgical mask are going to be useless in some situations but might prevent an infection in others.

by zpeti 5y ago

elcomet 5y ago

> No mask mandate has ever reduced the R number or growth trajectory anywhere in the world. And no study has ever confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that cloth and surgical masks work in any way against covid. KN95 perhaps, N95 definitely, but that's fairly obvious since it actually fits on your face and has a particle filter. Could you confirm this with a study ? This seems ridiculous

macinjosh 5y ago
Can you tell the difference between places that had mask mandates and places that did not? https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/masks https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/masks
- nchie 5y ago
  I don't get what the point of that quiz is. All of the example countries in it instituted their mask mandates between the first and second wave. None of them did not?
zacharytelschow 5y ago
This guy seems to exist to create charts that a) show vaccination does nothing to stop Omnicron, which seems to be all recent charts or b) that demographically similar states/countries that are neighbors have virtually identical results when one has a mask mandate and the other doesn't: https://twitter.com/ianmsc/ https://twitter.com/ianmsc/ Given how infectious Omnicron is, these mask mandates are nothing more than talismans.
- nchie 5y ago
  He's doesn't seem very credible though. For example, there's a lot of very obvious reasons which could help explain this[1]. 1: https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1481042778293358593 https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1481042778293358593

blip54321 5y ago

I think the numbers I saw for cloth was a modest reduction. Surgical refers to a broad range of objects, from a slip of paper to ones with high-filtration layers. For the latter, if everyone wore them, they'd stop COVID spread. See data from Asian hospitals, Indian social workers, etc. With omicron, it's very possible only N95 reduces R0 below 1, but we don't know that yet. A lot of it is theatrics, but high-filtration masks do help, even with imperfect fit.

dannyw 5y ago

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118 https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118 > Our review of the literature offers evidence in favor of widespread mask use as source control to reduce community transmission: Nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size; people are most infectious in the initial period postinfection, where it is common to have few or no symptoms (45, 46, 141); nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses; and places and time periods where mask usage is required or widespread have shown substantially lower community transmission. Are mask mandates partly about governments wanting to show that they are doing something? Certainly. Are non-N95 masks ineffective? The evidence says they have benefit.

zpeti 5y ago
I've repeatedly had that study linked to me when I say stuff like this. Quote from your link: > Direct Epidemiological Evidence. > Overall, evidence from RCTs and observational studies is informative, but not compelling on its own. Both the Australian influenza RCT and the Beijing households observational trial found around 80% efficacy among compliant subjects, and the one SARS household study of sufficient power found 70% efficacy for protecting the wearer. However, we do not know whether the results from influenza or SARS will correspond to results for SARS-CoV-2, and the single observational study of SARS-CoV-2 might not be replicated in other communities. None of the studies looked specifically at cloth masks.
- jcranberry 5y ago
  So if it has a history of working with other viruses, why would you think this is a crowd control exercise and not attempting something which has worked before?
macinjosh 5y ago
We should not looking for just any benefit and then if we see some, no matter how small, force everyone in society to do it. There are tradeoffs. For me as a parent masking young kids is unconscionable. Masks _scare_ my 18 month old daughter and she loses out on all the social skill building that comes with reading people's expressions.

logicalmonster 5y ago

I think human behavior needs to be taken into account when it comes to safety measures like masks. I'm sure you can design 100 lab tests to prove that masks work, but the real world reality is always going to be different: people don't wear masks (even fitted masks) correctly. Here's a short anecdote about how well-intentioned rules often work in the real world among non-trained people. While going to school to become a programmer, I worked in the food service industry. We were told to always wash our hands when shuffling between tasks: for instance when going from cutting potatoes to going to the register to handle peoples payments, we'd wash our hands thoroughly. This system was easy enough for anybody to come off the street and learn quickly and was strictly followed. One day a health inspector came by and started freaking out about this normal kitchen practice and started screeching that everybody had to wear gloves at all times. Of course anybody who understands reality knows how this turned out in the real world: pulling off and putting on gloves correctly for each task is a pain in the butt. What happened in the real world is people would put on one pair of gloves for hours, and go from working on the food to different tasks, including handling cash without changing gloves. As long as they were wearing the gloves at all times, they felt like they were doing the right thing. The reality is that people were just complying with the letter of the rule, but spreading far more dirt and bacteria around because of the rule. I don't care what laboratory theory says: the real world reality of how untrained people follow rules is different. In real-world practice, masks are (IMO heavily dehumanizing) medical theater. I think masks work great when used as they're intended: by trained health care professionals doing one task in one room and properly disposing of them. Everything else is politicians ruining our lives covering their asses so the media doesn't have some clickbait headline to rip them.

Symmetry 5y ago

It depends. Covid is a high k disease, a few people end up infecting hundreds in an afternoon, many people fail to infect the spouse they share a bed with. Partially that's behavior but partially it's people achieving very different peak viral loads as well. The protection factor of 2 or 3 you might get from a surgical mask are going to be useless in some situations but might prevent an infection in others.