5 ms·

Let me paint a bit of a difficult conundrum from the pandemic: Masks work dramatically better when the person wearing the mask is the one who is sick. A grocer

Let me paint a bit of a difficult conundrum from the pandemic: Masks work dramatically better when the person wearing the mask is the one who is sick. A grocery store where the one infected person is masked is better than the grocery store where the one infected person is openly coughing around 30 masked people. Everyone masked works best, but the heavy lifting is done by the sick persons mask. In short; You wear a mask to protect others from you, not the other way around. However, this creates a severe social stigma problem however: People wearing masks are outing themselves as being sick (whether or not they actually are). The result is people don't wear masks for fear of social retaliation. So now you, as a scientist, have to figure out what the messaging around masks is going to be. Wear a mask to protect others? Wear a mask to protect yourself? Everyone wear a mask all the time because we say so? It was a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. They went with everyone wear a mask all the time, alluding to the implication of masking being a tool of self preservation. Of course masks don't work great at stopping you from getting sick (outside of being specially trained in their use), which is easily proved, and half the country recognized they were being lied too (while never acknowledging that the sick person wearing a mask works great).

katdork 2y ago
it also depends upon the mask type who you're protecting? IIR surgical masks tend to only protect other people, whereas you can protect yourself with FFP2/FFP3/N95/P99/... but deciphering that is part of the problem, the layman had to come to terms with the difference between IIR masks and the other more protective to self standards. the messaging was unclear but it required the avg person to do their own research. imo, the real problem was the culture war? i don't think there's any problem with someone making it clear that they're sick; society needs to be more accepting of the sick and more accepting of call-outs of work due to illness. this would help everybody in the long run.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  >whereas you can protect yourself with FFP2/FFP3/N95/P99/... You can, but there is a procedure that 95% of people fail to follow.
  - aredox 2y ago
    That procedure (I guess you speak about fit tests, especially with a dust of saccharin) is important when you need to be 100% sure to be protected, such a dealing with with ebola or equivalent; but even a badly fitted mask will reduce the inhaled dose and improve the chances to develop a benign infection.
  - katdork 2y ago
    and that's a matter of messaging and education!
aredox 2y ago
Of course masks work well at protecting you - why do you think people wear masks when exposed to dust? The problem is that you can't wear it when you eat, and who does one eat with? Family, including children, who are prime infectors. The great lie here in Switzerland has been to pretend that kids don't get ill and don't infect others, to keep schools open (without any attempt at e.g. air filtration) to keep people working (because the prime function of school here seems to be daycare, to free both parents to go to work)
- zero-sharp 2y ago
  >Of course masks work well at protecting you - why do you think people wear masks when exposed to dust? Is that really it? That's all you need to conclude masks are effective at preventing the spread of airborne disease?
  - aredox 2y ago
    No, there is plenty of experiments and analysis comparing protection from the "emitter" and protection for the "receptor" Mechanically, masks fit better when one inhales than when one exhales.
    - zero-sharp 2y ago
      You're aware that there are studies specifically trying to find out how well masks work at reducing the spread of covid, yes? https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD... I wonder why we're studying this...
  - taylodl 2y ago
    Over 100 years of medical use helps, too. You know, the idea of using masks to prevent the spread of infectious disease isn't exactly a new idea and is widely employed by medical staff every single day.
    - mike_hearn 2y ago
dent9876543 2y ago
That’s what we were told, but don’t you think it was a bit daft? If it was a really severe disease, then fair play. (But then, what on earth are you doing chatting in a restaurant.) If it isn’t severe, then why bother protecting yourself at all? (Leave it to those that want to, or need to, to protect themselves.) The “wear masks!” demand simply puts responsibility in the wrong place.
- edanm 2y ago
  > If it isn’t severe, then why bother protecting yourself at all? (Leave it to those that want to, or need to, to protect themselves.) It was a severe disease for a certain portion of the population, especially before the vaccine. If you're willing to write off anyone with any preexisting condition and with older than a certain age, or just have them not participating in society for a few years, that's one kind of tradeoff. Everyone taking extra precautions like wearing masks and trying to socially distance is a different tradeoff. There's no getting around the fact that given a novel risk, we as a society had to make tough choices and tradeoffs over how to deal with it. There was no way to get out of this with zero negative impact - because the world gave us a bad situation.
  - dent9876543 2y ago
    True — we had to deal with it. Revisionism these days seems to accept that we didn't get it right, but rhetorically asks "could you have done better?", and gives only a shrug. We should have done better, and we could have. We put those with preexisting conditions and those over a certain age at greater risk by pretending our protection measures were good enough when they really weren't.
drewcoo 2y ago
That narrative ignores the actual flip-flopping on masks. First we were told not to use them because they were ineffectual (probably an attempt to hoard PPE for health care workers) then we were told that we had to wear them. So do you believe what the scientists (Fauci in particular) said initially, or believe what they said next, completely contradicting themselves and not explaining how the science had changed. A lot of us accept that science is constantly growing and only gives us the best answers we have in the moment (as opposed to hard truths like in mathematics). That's a strength of science! When there's a sudden change in alleged consensus for no apparent reason, it seems political.

katdork 2y ago

it also depends upon the mask type who you're protecting? IIR surgical masks tend to only protect other people, whereas you can protect yourself with FFP2/FFP3/N95/P99/... but deciphering that is part of the problem, the layman had to come to terms with the difference between IIR masks and the other more protective to self standards. the messaging was unclear but it required the avg person to do their own research. imo, the real problem was the culture war? i don't think there's any problem with someone making it clear that they're sick; society needs to be more accepting of the sick and more accepting of call-outs of work due to illness. this would help everybody in the long run.

Workaccount2 2y ago
>whereas you can protect yourself with FFP2/FFP3/N95/P99/... You can, but there is a procedure that 95% of people fail to follow.
- aredox 2y ago
  That procedure (I guess you speak about fit tests, especially with a dust of saccharin) is important when you need to be 100% sure to be protected, such a dealing with with ebola or equivalent; but even a badly fitted mask will reduce the inhaled dose and improve the chances to develop a benign infection.
- katdork 2y ago
  and that's a matter of messaging and education!

aredox 2y ago

Of course masks work well at protecting you - why do you think people wear masks when exposed to dust? The problem is that you can't wear it when you eat, and who does one eat with? Family, including children, who are prime infectors. The great lie here in Switzerland has been to pretend that kids don't get ill and don't infect others, to keep schools open (without any attempt at e.g. air filtration) to keep people working (because the prime function of school here seems to be daycare, to free both parents to go to work)

zero-sharp 2y ago
>Of course masks work well at protecting you - why do you think people wear masks when exposed to dust? Is that really it? That's all you need to conclude masks are effective at preventing the spread of airborne disease?
- aredox 2y ago
  No, there is plenty of experiments and analysis comparing protection from the "emitter" and protection for the "receptor" Mechanically, masks fit better when one inhales than when one exhales.
  - zero-sharp 2y ago
    You're aware that there are studies specifically trying to find out how well masks work at reducing the spread of covid, yes? https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD... I wonder why we're studying this...
- taylodl 2y ago
  Over 100 years of medical use helps, too. You know, the idea of using masks to prevent the spread of infectious disease isn't exactly a new idea and is widely employed by medical staff every single day.
  - mike_hearn 2y ago

dent9876543 2y ago

That’s what we were told, but don’t you think it was a bit daft? If it was a really severe disease, then fair play. (But then, what on earth are you doing chatting in a restaurant.) If it isn’t severe, then why bother protecting yourself at all? (Leave it to those that want to, or need to, to protect themselves.) The “wear masks!” demand simply puts responsibility in the wrong place.

edanm 2y ago
> If it isn’t severe, then why bother protecting yourself at all? (Leave it to those that want to, or need to, to protect themselves.) It was a severe disease for a certain portion of the population, especially before the vaccine. If you're willing to write off anyone with any preexisting condition and with older than a certain age, or just have them not participating in society for a few years, that's one kind of tradeoff. Everyone taking extra precautions like wearing masks and trying to socially distance is a different tradeoff. There's no getting around the fact that given a novel risk, we as a society had to make tough choices and tradeoffs over how to deal with it. There was no way to get out of this with zero negative impact - because the world gave us a bad situation.
- dent9876543 2y ago
  True — we had to deal with it. Revisionism these days seems to accept that we didn't get it right, but rhetorically asks "could you have done better?", and gives only a shrug. We should have done better, and we could have. We put those with preexisting conditions and those over a certain age at greater risk by pretending our protection measures were good enough when they really weren't.

drewcoo 2y ago

That narrative ignores the actual flip-flopping on masks. First we were told not to use them because they were ineffectual (probably an attempt to hoard PPE for health care workers) then we were told that we had to wear them. So do you believe what the scientists (Fauci in particular) said initially, or believe what they said next, completely contradicting themselves and not explaining how the science had changed. A lot of us accept that science is constantly growing and only gives us the best answers we have in the moment (as opposed to hard truths like in mathematics). That's a strength of science! When there's a sudden change in alleged consensus for no apparent reason, it seems political.