6 ms·

The anti mask, anti N95 masks with exhalation valve stuff has been the worst here I think. If you would let folks wear N95 with exhalation valves (highly comfo

The anti mask, anti N95 masks with exhalation valve stuff has been the worst here I think. If you would let folks wear N95 with exhalation valves (highly comfortable) it just makes it easier for folks to protect themselves (and indirectly others). And for those who don't care, let's distinguish slightly between making sure those who want to protect themselves as much as possible can, and the need to force people down a path which for the < 29 year olds really doesn't not have hi mortality rates, and for whom vaccination does not eliminate the disease the way it might something like smallpox etc. My own view is the battle is largely lost already by the health authorities. Locally we have an indoor mask mandate including offices with all staff fully vaxed, and the natural desire to comply with this has gotten lower and lower if you are pretty spread out in large cubicals etc.

toolz 5y ago
This is a bit of a tangent, but I don't understand generalized masking. At best they flatten the curve, which I think at this point I believe flattening the curve is dangerous. We have pretty well defined risk demographics and if we could have covid seasons come and go quickly I think it gives the high risk demographics the best chance of applying multi-layered defenses against a shorter season of risk. There is of course the "overcrowded hospital" issue, but I have a hard time coming to terms with that being a real problem - if it were a real problem why has hospital capacity been in decline this entire pandemic? Is it an unsolvable problem or is it just not a real problem outside of fantastically clickable headlines? I lean heavily towards the latter but I could be convinced otherwise.
- tempnow987 5y ago
  The issue for me is I have elderly parents one of which does have a health condition (serious) that makes some breathing and other issues hard. They wanted to fly out to visit me. The absolute best way to avoid covid for yourself in my view is an N95 masks with a vent, because you can actually wear that thing for hours comfortably. I have friends who treated folks with covid wearing N95's and did not get covid. So I really wish we could let folks make the personal health decisions here a bit more. If you want to wear a bubble helmet with filters in it - go for it. The full respirator (almost always with an exhalation valve)? Go for it. The N95 with an exhalation valve? Go for it. Instead, delta airlines says no full cover, no N95 with exhalation etc. So now you have people who don't want to wear masks forced to wear them, and they are preventing folks who really DO want to be protected (while on a flight) from fully protecting themselves. This is all in the name of "science" which really is not science but "public health" mumbo jumbo. It goes back to this issue of basically not realizing folks have different risk profiles / tolerances. If I'm allowed to wear my N95 with an exhalation valve for 4 hours, I frankly don't care if the guy 2 rows back has his mask off his nose. This mistake is lecturing everyone (often with bad info) and then blocking folks from solving their own problems. remember when the anti-body rapid tests had to have a chip, an iphone app and a medical professional in the mix? And no, I don't believe in those cloth masks, and surgical masks on a plane for 5 hours? Hard to imagine that being highly effective.
  - toolz 5y ago
    Personally I don't think any kind of mask works on people who don't want to wear them. I hypothesize the reason general population shows little or no benefit with masks is because wearing masks effectively is significantly more tedious than just having one on most of the time where people require them. People who don't want masks aren't getting fitted properly for n95's, they aren't shaving, they aren't behaving consciously in the many ways you can behave that render masking ineffective.
    - tempnow987 5y ago
      Agreed. I laugh because folks have masks on their necks, off their noses etc, when eating, when drinking etc. I don't blame them, a lot of masks fog up glasses etc if they actually are restrictive and don't have an exhalation valve. I shave (this comes from scuba diving where shaving provides similar benefits). I have my own reasons not to want to get covid. So I like doing some things that I'm confident reduce my risk meaningfully. But I don't lecture others, I solve my own problem here.
    - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
      N.95 without shaving does seem to still confer some additional protection, though arguably you're wasting over half the potential when you do.
      - tempnow987 5y ago
        Its pretty noticeable, If I shave, I get a tight suction feel on an indrawn breath. This is same experience you get with a scuba mask. That's interesting there is some protection, I could believe still better than things like cloth and surgical because the strapping tends to be tighter.
    - jimkleiber 5y ago
      Does it render masks "ineffective" or "less effective"? I think I see so much absolutist language whereas I wish we would use more relative language.
- alar44 5y ago
  I have no idea how to respond to the overcrowded hospitals. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-hospitals-near-you.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-hospitals-... Hospitals have been jam packed the entire time. There is data everywhere to support this. Tons of procedures are not being done due to beds and ICUs being full. Ask anyone who works in a hospital. Call one if you'd like.
  - cdot2 5y ago
    Then why did the USS Mercy which was in New York during the beginning of the pandemic only ever treat 48 patients? 77 while she was in Los Angeles. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/military/infected-usns-mercy-crew-members-had-contact-with-patients-navy-says/2306268/ https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/military/infected-usn... https://news.usni.org/2020/05/15/usns-mercy-leaves-los-angeles-after-treating-77-patients-some-personnel-will-remain-in-l-a https://news.usni.org/2020/05/15/usns-mercy-leaves-los-angel...
    - ungawatkt 5y ago
      This is second hand from someone close, but not too close in the military, so details are off but the narrative is on track: The Mercy was deployed after some communication between New York hospitals, and the understanding at least was that it would mostly be handling emergency, trauma, and routine patients (what military docs are good are at as a stereotype), and free up capacity for the hospitals to deal with COVID. The "normal" medical stuff promptly dropped in demand with lockdown, between fewer accidents and deferred care. So there wasn't much for the Mercy to do, the few covid patients sent over were about all of an "unknown air transmissible virus" (working theory at the time) that it was really equipped to handle, because that wasn't the mission they were expecting.
      - cdot2 5y ago
        That makes sense in New York but we knew more about the situation when she was in LA and when the USNS Comfort was in New York later on. (Also I put USS Mercy when it should be USNS Mercy) "Another of the Navy’s two hospital ships, the USNS Comfort, was sent to New York City to treat non-coronavirus patients. However, after treating only a few dozen patients, the Comfort changed its rules to allow coronavirus-positive patients on the ship. The Comfort had been docked in New York Harbor in Manhattan since March 30 but departed last month for its Norfolk, Va., home port after treating just 182 patients." https://thehill.com/policy/defense/497987-usns-mercy-leaves-los-angeles-after-treating-77-patients https://thehill.com/policy/defense/497987-usns-mercy-leaves-...
- ASinclair 5y ago
  > if it were a real problem why has hospital capacity been in decline this entire pandemic We filled hospitals over capacity and burned out healthcare workers. They decided to quit rather than work in such conditions. Don't overwork healthcare workers and maybe they won't burnout so quickly.
- immibis 5y ago
  Generalized masking reduces R. R<0.8 and the pandemic ends.
  - rory 5y ago
    Yes, but that doesn't mean reducing R from 8 to 7 (example numbers) is all that helpful without a plan to get from 7 to 0.8.
    - immibis 5y ago
      It should be the other way around: non-essential-workers only leaving the home for groceries and other essentials reduces it from 7 to 1.5, keeping distance at the grocery store reduces it from 1.5 to 1.1, wearing masks at the grocery store reduces it from 1.1 t o 0.8. Something like that. Made-up numbers.
Kim_Bruning 5y ago
I don't get it. Exhalation valves are great if you're using the mask to filter external dust. Here you're trying to filter outgoing and ingoing droplets. Filtering is still going to be most effective at the source, even if you are wearing N.95. Adding a valve is going to reduce the utility of the mask a lot for this application.
- tempnow987 5y ago
  My personal interest is filtering on ingress. I can feel the pressure when I breathe in, the air is going through the mask for sure. On egress, just a quick look at the valve, it's going to stop the velocity and either block or drop particles - however ineffective that might be on egress there is NO WAY it is worse then what I see others wearing (surgical / thin cloth etc), mask off the nose, mask off while they eat etc. Finally - folks historically have a natural "self interest" motivation. Ie, if you let folks act in a self interested way - personal protection, personal comfort - you are likely going to be better off policy wise.
  - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
    https://www.microcovid.org/ https://www.microcovid.org/ You can do a rough risk computation yourself I guess. Both ingress and egress is worse if you have a valve though. Does seem like egress is still a bit better than what other people do (in this model at least - which could be wrong), but one shouldn't set one's standards by "what other people do".
    - tempnow987 5y ago
      "one shouldn't set one's standards by "what other people do"" In policy matters one can and should. This is the stupidity I think of the scientists here. If others are wearing surgical and little cloth masks, only wearing them a little bit, but then they say I can't wear my valved N95 (which I do very carefully) it's both totally arbitrary and unfair (my exhalations are still equal too or less others). They also miss that the tradeoff might not be between my 5 hours of N95 use in a relative high workrate environment and something perfect, but that I will join with just about everyone else and ignore what they say, or go down to something like a surgical mask for comfort. Or take my mask off more for comfort to "drink" etc. I'm convinced many folks on HN sit behind computers in empty rooms alone and NOT wearing a mask. If you have to wear a mask every day - these issues would matter a lot more.

toolz 5y ago

This is a bit of a tangent, but I don't understand generalized masking. At best they flatten the curve, which I think at this point I believe flattening the curve is dangerous. We have pretty well defined risk demographics and if we could have covid seasons come and go quickly I think it gives the high risk demographics the best chance of applying multi-layered defenses against a shorter season of risk. There is of course the "overcrowded hospital" issue, but I have a hard time coming to terms with that being a real problem - if it were a real problem why has hospital capacity been in decline this entire pandemic? Is it an unsolvable problem or is it just not a real problem outside of fantastically clickable headlines? I lean heavily towards the latter but I could be convinced otherwise.

tempnow987 5y ago
The issue for me is I have elderly parents one of which does have a health condition (serious) that makes some breathing and other issues hard. They wanted to fly out to visit me. The absolute best way to avoid covid for yourself in my view is an N95 masks with a vent, because you can actually wear that thing for hours comfortably. I have friends who treated folks with covid wearing N95's and did not get covid. So I really wish we could let folks make the personal health decisions here a bit more. If you want to wear a bubble helmet with filters in it - go for it. The full respirator (almost always with an exhalation valve)? Go for it. The N95 with an exhalation valve? Go for it. Instead, delta airlines says no full cover, no N95 with exhalation etc. So now you have people who don't want to wear masks forced to wear them, and they are preventing folks who really DO want to be protected (while on a flight) from fully protecting themselves. This is all in the name of "science" which really is not science but "public health" mumbo jumbo. It goes back to this issue of basically not realizing folks have different risk profiles / tolerances. If I'm allowed to wear my N95 with an exhalation valve for 4 hours, I frankly don't care if the guy 2 rows back has his mask off his nose. This mistake is lecturing everyone (often with bad info) and then blocking folks from solving their own problems. remember when the anti-body rapid tests had to have a chip, an iphone app and a medical professional in the mix? And no, I don't believe in those cloth masks, and surgical masks on a plane for 5 hours? Hard to imagine that being highly effective.
- toolz 5y ago
  Personally I don't think any kind of mask works on people who don't want to wear them. I hypothesize the reason general population shows little or no benefit with masks is because wearing masks effectively is significantly more tedious than just having one on most of the time where people require them. People who don't want masks aren't getting fitted properly for n95's, they aren't shaving, they aren't behaving consciously in the many ways you can behave that render masking ineffective.
  - tempnow987 5y ago
    Agreed. I laugh because folks have masks on their necks, off their noses etc, when eating, when drinking etc. I don't blame them, a lot of masks fog up glasses etc if they actually are restrictive and don't have an exhalation valve. I shave (this comes from scuba diving where shaving provides similar benefits). I have my own reasons not to want to get covid. So I like doing some things that I'm confident reduce my risk meaningfully. But I don't lecture others, I solve my own problem here.
  - Kim_Bruning 5y ago
    N.95 without shaving does seem to still confer some additional protection, though arguably you're wasting over half the potential when you do.
    - tempnow987 5y ago
      Its pretty noticeable, If I shave, I get a tight suction feel on an indrawn breath. This is same experience you get with a scuba mask. That's interesting there is some protection, I could believe still better than things like cloth and surgical because the strapping tends to be tighter.
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    Does it render masks "ineffective" or "less effective"? I think I see so much absolutist language whereas I wish we would use more relative language.
alar44 5y ago
I have no idea how to respond to the overcrowded hospitals. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-hospitals-near-you.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-hospitals-... Hospitals have been jam packed the entire time. There is data everywhere to support this. Tons of procedures are not being done due to beds and ICUs being full. Ask anyone who works in a hospital. Call one if you'd like.
- cdot2 5y ago
  Then why did the USS Mercy which was in New York during the beginning of the pandemic only ever treat 48 patients? 77 while she was in Los Angeles. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/military/infected-usns-mercy-crew-members-had-contact-with-patients-navy-says/2306268/ https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/military/infected-usn... https://news.usni.org/2020/05/15/usns-mercy-leaves-los-angeles-after-treating-77-patients-some-personnel-will-remain-in-l-a https://news.usni.org/2020/05/15/usns-mercy-leaves-los-angel...
  - ungawatkt 5y ago
    This is second hand from someone close, but not too close in the military, so details are off but the narrative is on track: The Mercy was deployed after some communication between New York hospitals, and the understanding at least was that it would mostly be handling emergency, trauma, and routine patients (what military docs are good are at as a stereotype), and free up capacity for the hospitals to deal with COVID. The "normal" medical stuff promptly dropped in demand with lockdown, between fewer accidents and deferred care. So there wasn't much for the Mercy to do, the few covid patients sent over were about all of an "unknown air transmissible virus" (working theory at the time) that it was really equipped to handle, because that wasn't the mission they were expecting.
    - cdot2 5y ago
      That makes sense in New York but we knew more about the situation when she was in LA and when the USNS Comfort was in New York later on. (Also I put USS Mercy when it should be USNS Mercy) "Another of the Navy’s two hospital ships, the USNS Comfort, was sent to New York City to treat non-coronavirus patients. However, after treating only a few dozen patients, the Comfort changed its rules to allow coronavirus-positive patients on the ship. The Comfort had been docked in New York Harbor in Manhattan since March 30 but departed last month for its Norfolk, Va., home port after treating just 182 patients." https://thehill.com/policy/defense/497987-usns-mercy-leaves-los-angeles-after-treating-77-patients https://thehill.com/policy/defense/497987-usns-mercy-leaves-...
ASinclair 5y ago
> if it were a real problem why has hospital capacity been in decline this entire pandemic We filled hospitals over capacity and burned out healthcare workers. They decided to quit rather than work in such conditions. Don't overwork healthcare workers and maybe they won't burnout so quickly.
immibis 5y ago
Generalized masking reduces R. R<0.8 and the pandemic ends.
- rory 5y ago
  Yes, but that doesn't mean reducing R from 8 to 7 (example numbers) is all that helpful without a plan to get from 7 to 0.8.
  - immibis 5y ago
    It should be the other way around: non-essential-workers only leaving the home for groceries and other essentials reduces it from 7 to 1.5, keeping distance at the grocery store reduces it from 1.5 to 1.1, wearing masks at the grocery store reduces it from 1.1 t o 0.8. Something like that. Made-up numbers.

Kim_Bruning 5y ago

I don't get it. Exhalation valves are great if you're using the mask to filter external dust. Here you're trying to filter outgoing and ingoing droplets. Filtering is still going to be most effective at the source, even if you are wearing N.95. Adding a valve is going to reduce the utility of the mask a lot for this application.

tempnow987 5y ago
My personal interest is filtering on ingress. I can feel the pressure when I breathe in, the air is going through the mask for sure. On egress, just a quick look at the valve, it's going to stop the velocity and either block or drop particles - however ineffective that might be on egress there is NO WAY it is worse then what I see others wearing (surgical / thin cloth etc), mask off the nose, mask off while they eat etc. Finally - folks historically have a natural "self interest" motivation. Ie, if you let folks act in a self interested way - personal protection, personal comfort - you are likely going to be better off policy wise.
- Kim_Bruning 5y ago
  https://www.microcovid.org/ https://www.microcovid.org/ You can do a rough risk computation yourself I guess. Both ingress and egress is worse if you have a valve though. Does seem like egress is still a bit better than what other people do (in this model at least - which could be wrong), but one shouldn't set one's standards by "what other people do".
  - tempnow987 5y ago
    "one shouldn't set one's standards by "what other people do"" In policy matters one can and should. This is the stupidity I think of the scientists here. If others are wearing surgical and little cloth masks, only wearing them a little bit, but then they say I can't wear my valved N95 (which I do very carefully) it's both totally arbitrary and unfair (my exhalations are still equal too or less others). They also miss that the tradeoff might not be between my 5 hours of N95 use in a relative high workrate environment and something perfect, but that I will join with just about everyone else and ignore what they say, or go down to something like a surgical mask for comfort. Or take my mask off more for comfort to "drink" etc. I'm convinced many folks on HN sit behind computers in empty rooms alone and NOT wearing a mask. If you have to wear a mask every day - these issues would matter a lot more.