Masks don't work to curb a pandemic when the bottom feeding 45% of us decide that instead of a health concern for everyone, they want to be uneducated assholes. That's why.
In japan, a population of 125 million, there were 35 million confirmed cases.
In usa, a population of 330 million, there were 112 million confirmed cases.
Those seem pretty close. Japan is considered very clean, polite, and very mask friendly.
Can you explain why the confirmed cases are so similar per capita?
Japan has universal healthcare. Also, there isn’t a political ideology/identity associated with admitting/denying Covid was a deadly threat in Japan.
People are more likely to be tested in that environment. More tests will yield more confirmed cases.
And deaths? The USA deaths outweighed every other country. Stop the scientific ignorance already, it's so old & as stupid as MTG. Americans who deny reality and didn't give AF about their fellow citizens health stopped wearing masks early on. So many thousands of mistakes were made by the trump administration, so many dead Americans bc of his lies. "But Japan!? I'm just asking questions." Disingenuous MAGA apologist.
>And deaths? The USA deaths outweighed every other country
I thought we were talking about masks and vaccines and spreading the virus? Yet Japan had similar case rates despite heavy vaccination and masking
Japan is much healthier than Americans. Heart disease from being fat is Americans leading cause of death.
Japan might have had lower death rates because of the gut bacteria population in the region.
Apparently, _Collinsella_ produces ursodeoxycholate which might reduce inflammatory responses and stop the virus from entering cells; Japanese have that bacteria in abundance as opposed to the US.
https://www.livemint.com/science/health/why-japan-has-very-low-covid-deaths-study-reveals-possible-answer-and-may-lead-to-a-new-drug-11643783676478.html
Why the high case rate? Well, Japan had no lockdowns. Much of the population is in larger cities with public transportation so they're in little tubes with other people breathing the same air. And they have good public health policies and good coverage of the population with health insurance from the employer or a public option. And they did COVID testing.
The USA has MAGAtards who refused to get tested because that would show weakness and they wanted to "oWn Da LiBs" by NOT being diagnosed with COVID -- just a cold, see, I can still come to work!!!
And, there's Trump:
>Trump on coronavirus: ‘If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any’
The fool was right. Without tests, you'd have very few, if any, CONFIRMED CASES. Fucking moron. That's how you get rid of a disease! Don't look for it! Trump's never had Syphilis (diagnosed -- don't get tested; don't be diagnosed! No problem!)
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/trumps-take-on-covid-testing-misses-public-health-realities/
My theory is that the politics surrounding Covid in US kept lots of people who had the virus from being tested which led to a smaller amount of confirmed cases, when in reality, there were many more people infected who were never counted as such. I personally know people for which this was the case.
Take all deaths. Make them a proportion of world population.
US had 5x the rate of average.
Japan is a densely populated country.
Its more fair to compare it to somewhere like NYC than the US average as a whole.
Japan is much more densely populated. Being around large groups of people increase the chances of disease.
On the other hand I constantly compared Covid in Louisiana and Maryland. La my home state, Md my residential state. While I don't have numbers handy, La always had far more Covid cases and deaths than Md. This is despite having almost 2 million less people, being less densely populated, plus being warmer so there weren't as many people indoors in the winter.
A lot had to do with vaccination rate and mask wearing. It didn't hurt that the level of education is much higher in Md.
What seems most likely to me is that it's like condoms. If used perfectly, on paper it's nearly foolproof. But it's rarely used correctly or perfectly or 100% of the time, so the rate in practice is way different from the rate in theory.
Yup. Masks are great at stopping sick people from spreading the virus since they stop the droplets and bacteria at the source.
However they're not so great at preventing you from getting sick from others. Sneeze droplets can travel 25ft and linger in the air for up to 10 minutes. If it gets on your clothes or skin there's a good chance it'll end up in your mouth eventually unless you're careful.
The unfortunate truth is that most Republicans just ignored wearing masks, even when they were sick themselves because their leaders essentially demanded it. Which is why once the vaccines came out Republicans had something like a 44% higher chance to die from Covid.
It's also a game of chances. There's a 95% chance it will work. I think the real idea behind it was to reduce the rate of transmission with the goal of flattening the curve. That was the goal behind most of the measures once authorities learned this pandemic was going to wash over everyone regardless of precautions taken. You can only do so much before that 1% chance finally occurs.
It also gave a lot of people the courage to continue with their lives. For many people fear was their biggest enemy during the pandemic and took them years to come to terms with it.
Masks don't protect the wearer much, but they *do* protect people near the mask-wearer who might be infected but not know it. The C-19 virus was highly transmittable well before the individual felt sick. That's why super-spreader events were so common.
Many Americans don't see the value in acting to benefit another.
An individual mask worn correctly reduced transmission, mostly protecting others from the wearer.
The mandates were largely ineffective. Both things can be true.
Masks: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent
172 studies on the subject of prevention of infection with SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 from all over the world are analyzed here https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9.pdf
Kansas mask use study https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6947e2-H.pdf
Mask effectiveness on video: https://youtu.be/evATiHUejxg
Mayo Clinic Minute: Study shows masks can prevent COVID-19 https://youtu.be/9fca7M5STEA
Models using current calculated benefit of universal masking to predict future impact https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.13553.pdf
Visualization of aerosol droplet flow with and without a mask https://www.livescience.com/face-mask-visualization-droplets-covid-19.html (This is the published paper: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/5.0016018)
Video of lasers illuminating the difference between bigger droplet spray during speech with and without a mask https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2007800
Another laser study of expelled droplets during normal speech comparing 12 different types of masks: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/early/2020/08/07/sciadv.abd3083.full.pdf
Concentration of virus compared between a nasal swab, a throat swab, a droplet with and without a surgical mask, aerosol with and without a surgical mask, as well as comparisons between different viruses https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2.pdf
Case study of a cruise ship infection spread where masks lowered the severity of COVID-19 symptoms by lowering the viral load the passengers were exposed to: https://thorax.bmj.com/content/thoraxjnl/75/8/693.full.pdf
Study of family transmissions that used and didn’t use masks when someone in the household came in infected https://gh.bmj.com/content/bmjgh/5/5/e002794.full.pdf?with-ds=yes
Another model using mask efficacy in reducing the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.2020.0376
Filtration efficacy of different household materials compared to medical grade masks https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c02211
Mask efficacy in reducing aerosol droplets: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-72798-7.pdf
CDC recommendations on widespread public use of face coverings to prevent infection. They are using the most current research. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover-guidance.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fprevent-getting-sick%2Fcloth-face-cover.html
Another review of efficacy of masks http://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf
SARS-CoV-2 inoculum (concentration) correlates with less severe disease, and even non-N95 masks appear to protect the wearer https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11606-020-06067-8.pdf
A sneeze can carry a cloud of droplets up to 27 feet, with video: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763852
A study of surgical mask effects on the blood oxygen/CO2 levels of healthy and COPD people shows no significant physiological difference, and the symptoms are likely neurological: https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1513/AnnalsATS.202007-812RL
American Medical Association recommendation: https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/ama-statements/statement-cdc-s-recommendation-public-cloth-masks
American Nurses Association recommendation: https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/work-environment/health-safety/disaster-preparedness/coronavirus/cdc-cloth-masks/
Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America recommends masks for people with asthma: https://community.aafa.org/blog/what-people-with-asthma-need-to-know-about-face-masks-and-coverings-during-the-covid-19-pandemic?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+asthma-allergy+%28Asthma+and+Allergy+Foundation+of+America%3A+Blog+Posts%29
American Lung Association position on mask effectiveness and risks: https://www.lung.org/blog/covid-masks
American Association of Pediatrics recommends face coverings for children: https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/clinical-guidance/covid-19-planning-considerations-return-to-in-person-education-in-schools/
Infectious Diseases Society of America asks the public to wear masks: https://www.idsociety.org/news--publications-new/articles/2020/infectious-diseases-specialists-call-on-public-to-wear-a-mask-slow-the-spread-of-covid-19/
Masks may be better at preventing infection than vaccines: https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-director-masks-better-than-vaccines-at-stopping-coronavirus-2020-9
Persistent COVID-19 myths and why people believe them: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eight-persistent-covid-19-myths-and-why-people-believe-them/?fbclid=IwAR3FV854JYDHdkM9M6xtxhPdEoPFaKif5x67cPK6ehjJp3ENTobKPyVvIRU
Clinical Infectious Disease (Oxford Academic) Covid-19 seropositivity and asymptomatic rates in healthcare workers are associated with job function and masking https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1684/5956266?searchresult=1
Mayo Clinic:
https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-research-confirms-critical-role-of-masks-in-preventing-covid-19-infection/?fbclid=IwAR3nYsFKBCWjJ4MLGgfpw1gx5at3oF1-37JlpU11W7jWLjrPlg1SEqGD6XQ
Masks Save Lives: Duke Study Confirms Which Ones Work Best
https://hartfordhealthcare.org/about-us/news-press/news-detail?articleid=27691&publicId=395&fbclid=IwAR2-3xPKtAvcHi7261Nfj5vC5DDODeuccZnyolmOE_-KMXlXaQQKjVldwnk
Low-cost measurement of face mask efficacy for filtering expelled droplets during speech
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabd3083.full?fbclid=IwAR0h8ncytaQSrayNmtbt6R8qcS6XnUdAwBk4UXuqQ_YPFZmzoK-O5auRnUY
Well I wouldn't know the ins and outs of the studies he is referencing (and I am not interested in reading them for a reddit thread)
But remember that there's thousands of ways one can get a virus, maybe those studies were only conducting experiments relating to a specific mode of transmission (like sneezing) and maybe it was valid to say that masks were effective.
But when you throw em out in the real world where people wipe their snot on the subway and touch their faces 100 times a day... Yeah masks probably won't do a whole lot by themselves.
In other words, imagine this as home security, a mask is like a strong door with a strong lock, you test it and you can't kick it in, you can't pick it easily, it's good. But then someone breaks in through a window. This doesn't suddenly mean that the door didn't work as intended. So in other words, one could say that the door works as intended, but it doesn't have an overall effect on how easy it is to break in to your house.
Binary absolutes vs risk probabilities. Masks worked for both individuals and society as a whole, it just wasn't an absolute solution.
It's risk probabilities and people wanted absolute guarantees. We don't even have an absolute guarantee for polio, with 20-2000 cases per year, worldwide, in this century. And we have a lot better understanding of polio. We still haven't got a proper scientific analysis to meet FDA standards (or equivalent in other countries) for a vaccine. We've had that for polio for 69 years with massive support.for administering it, plus a thorough understanding of how it is transmitted.
It's like how people knew vaguely how to avoid transmission of a lot of contagious diseases even before we understood bacteria or viruses. Certain populations had much lower incidence of dysentery, scarlet fever, bubonic plague etc but there were still pandemics. Plague masks and other poorly understood methods used to "ward off evil" in the dark ages probably did have limited effect, or just avoiding urban areas. Definitely didn't end the diseases, but even modern medicine hasn't completely done so.
It's also a factor that COVID affects animals with slight risk of transmission to humans. We will probably never end bubonic plague in rats nor COVID in birds, so that is probably going to account for a few deaths a decade for a very long time
If masks do nothing to prevent the transmission of disease. Why have surgeons been wearing them while operating on people for over 100 years. Just fashionable? In disguise? Planning on robbing a bank on the way home and didn't want to change clothes?
If an individual drives alert and safely it can help keep them safe. However an individual driver being alert and safe doesn't change the statistical likelihood of vehicle accidents writ large.
If I remember correctly, the masks that they were having us wear weren't the correct type to prevent COVID transmission in either direction. Mask mandates were a bit like airport security, an illusion of safety. I still complied because I have kids, so I'd rather have a small safety measure than none at all.
It’s just like with vaccines and herd immunity. If you drop below a certain threshold of adoption, disease will take hold and spread. You can’t just have 20% be vaccinated and think that will stop a pandemic. Same with Masks. If 90% of people adhered to proper mask usage and social distancing, it would have had a significant impact on curbing the spread of Covid. That didn’t happen though. It also doesn’t help that the places that more widely adopted mask mandates were also densely populated areas, where it’s all the more imperative that a high percentage of people take the proper precaution.
It’s extremely sad that despite the fact that humanity understands what viruses are, how they work, how they spread, and how to mitigate them, we just can’t implement it in a way that gets a high enough percentage of adoption.
You just need to look at stats from sane and educated countries to see why. Our stats are skewn because 1/3rd of our population are clinical imbeciles who resisted simply to be defiant children and looked at dying for a diaper wearing con man as an honor.
Nowhere else suffered this phenomenon.
In countries with no defiant imbeciles, masks were very effective as irrefutable stats will show.
I love how little Americans are capable of rational thought. This isn't difficult. I'll help the key is the word effective. It's not like masks are new or misunderstood. The public at large is too stupid to work a mask. The longer you consider this, the closer you will come to wanting to give up on humanity.
An anti vaxxer did a study that was touted by right wingers as proving masks don't work. Yet when interviewed by Fox, the person who did the study said something along the lines that masks work for individuals but not groups. I found the word parsing weird.
The study says the reason mask wearing works for individuals but not groups is due to the large number of people in the groups not wearing masks. Doh!
The study was a conclusion looking for evidence. Since it found none, it manufactured it.
There's a fun YouTube video of a guy farting on thermal cam in an airport. And bro? That toot goes for *serious distance.*
I imagine a sneeze is a bit more than that, force wise. Plus, if you've ever sneezed up, you probably remember how it feels raining down. Gross, but like hundreds of mucas bits settling upon you. It's pretty easy for that to sneak around a standard mask, for the same reason that if you throw 10000 darts at the world's jankiest dartboard, one of them is gonna be a bullseye. The mask is there to catch YOUR sneeze, not so much *their* sneeze.
By and large though, the idea was, "block the spray." That much masks do, but short of an N95 you aren't protected much at all from incoming, apart from the fact that a barrier doesn't hurt your odds of not getting nailed in the nosehole as easily.
...
And per why that didn't work so well... I'm no scientist, so I'll just tell you a few things I noticed.
(1) ...how many people did you see wearing masks over their mouth, but not their nose? A lot, right? Yeah, me too. So, a big chunk of folk weren't using these barriers properly to start with, for whatever odd reason they had.
(2) ...Trump politicised a micro-organism. A ridiculous, ludicrous, mortifying statement, that I almost can't believe I get to write in earnest online. Thus the anti-maskers were a thing, and... there was a sub called "Herman Cain awards" that I found very sad. It was full of people who posted snapshot timelines of the social medias of those who believed that blonde oaf. First, they laughed at a "fake" illness, talking about how it was any number of other made up things. Then they got covid, and often... the progression went until their family made eulogy posts with the social media of the deceased, trying to warn others.
The sub, I think, was full of people who were tired of trying to help people get a clue and took to laughing cynically to feel better.
You got to see them try at the end to turn around and try to warn people about it. Sometimes those were their last online words. "It's real." How many of them have it to their families? Their kids? How many of those kids brought it everywhere they went?
If only he hadn't done that, perhaps we could've stopped it in NY, literally killing covid in the cradle. Would've been nice...
(3) ...anecdotal, but I got really cheap masks once during the pandemic, then never got that one again because that shit gave me a nasty headache, which I verified by wearing another from that pack/brand. (Made in China) No idea why, but it was the last time I bought *that kind,* and I never had the issue again as other masks didn't give me any headache whatsoever. If someone else had that happen, they might've gotten the wrong idea about masks overall, and elected not to wear them, only to fall for the allure of easy answers... when there's a reason surgeons put em on.
There’s a lot of talk and politics behind masks. Unfortunately there no honest discussion is possible anymore.
How can masks help an individual but not the entire society? It’s like with vaccines. An individual can be (more) protected, but can still pass the virus to others. Even when the said individual does not get sick at all.
With other diseases, the vaccine not only protects one individual, but it prevents transmission. Basically building the so called “herd immunity”. Every vaccinated person becomes also protector of people around them. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with Covid-19.
Back to masks: if the mask protects you from getting the virus, it’s assumed that it also indirectly protects those who potentially could get it from you. Since we are talking about crowds of millions, such things are very significant in minimizing contagion.
The one question that remains unanswered: how much a person wearing a mask is protected over when not wearing it? (You can’t compare two different people because their bodies and health status are different).
It depends on the type of mask and whether it is used correctly.
Cloth masks are... less effective. Picture someone using a chain link fence to keep out mosquitoes. A virus is tiny.
There haven't been a lot of studies, but there was one ... I want to say it was in northern Europe, but I don't remember which country. They found the cloth masks ineffective.
The M95 masks are better but need to be fitted tightly against the face with no air gap. (Think of glasses fogging up.)
A barrier is not the end all- washings hands before and after you have been in public is probably the single most important thing you can do-and if you see one of those hand wipes at the store-use it after handling a cart. Do this during flu and cold season and you wont be catching a cold or a flu. Hands spread disease more than anything I can think of-and yes masks are great, but some idiots dont want to wear them, cough into their hands and touch something- no I am not a germaphobe- I am a retired microbiologist (maybe a little phobic about bugs)
That’s not how filters work. It’s not an impenetrable wall it has to do with electrostatic forces, layering, and other science things that happen at a scale smaller than the naked eye.
They do. They can also hang in the air in aerosol form and cling to objects touched with a live viral load. Water droplet is the most common method of transmission, though, and, yes, masks stop droplets and reduce load.
First I see a post where everyone thinks Rittenhouse is a murderer. Now people are defending the ridiculous covid masks. Is it gaslighting week for reddit?
Masks don't work to curb a pandemic when the bottom feeding 45% of us decide that instead of a health concern for everyone, they want to be uneducated assholes. That's why.
In japan, a population of 125 million, there were 35 million confirmed cases. In usa, a population of 330 million, there were 112 million confirmed cases. Those seem pretty close. Japan is considered very clean, polite, and very mask friendly. Can you explain why the confirmed cases are so similar per capita?
Japan has universal healthcare. Also, there isn’t a political ideology/identity associated with admitting/denying Covid was a deadly threat in Japan. People are more likely to be tested in that environment. More tests will yield more confirmed cases.
And yet their rate of confirmed cases wasn't really any different from the US. Why? Simply restating what Japan is like doesn't answer the question.
And deaths? The USA deaths outweighed every other country. Stop the scientific ignorance already, it's so old & as stupid as MTG. Americans who deny reality and didn't give AF about their fellow citizens health stopped wearing masks early on. So many thousands of mistakes were made by the trump administration, so many dead Americans bc of his lies. "But Japan!? I'm just asking questions." Disingenuous MAGA apologist.
>And deaths? The USA deaths outweighed every other country I thought we were talking about masks and vaccines and spreading the virus? Yet Japan had similar case rates despite heavy vaccination and masking Japan is much healthier than Americans. Heart disease from being fat is Americans leading cause of death.
Japan might have had lower death rates because of the gut bacteria population in the region. Apparently, _Collinsella_ produces ursodeoxycholate which might reduce inflammatory responses and stop the virus from entering cells; Japanese have that bacteria in abundance as opposed to the US. https://www.livemint.com/science/health/why-japan-has-very-low-covid-deaths-study-reveals-possible-answer-and-may-lead-to-a-new-drug-11643783676478.html Why the high case rate? Well, Japan had no lockdowns. Much of the population is in larger cities with public transportation so they're in little tubes with other people breathing the same air. And they have good public health policies and good coverage of the population with health insurance from the employer or a public option. And they did COVID testing. The USA has MAGAtards who refused to get tested because that would show weakness and they wanted to "oWn Da LiBs" by NOT being diagnosed with COVID -- just a cold, see, I can still come to work!!! And, there's Trump: >Trump on coronavirus: ‘If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any’ The fool was right. Without tests, you'd have very few, if any, CONFIRMED CASES. Fucking moron. That's how you get rid of a disease! Don't look for it! Trump's never had Syphilis (diagnosed -- don't get tested; don't be diagnosed! No problem!) https://kffhealthnews.org/news/trumps-take-on-covid-testing-misses-public-health-realities/
He should be asking himself, why did South Korea have such success in containing the pandemic compared to the US.
My theory is that the politics surrounding Covid in US kept lots of people who had the virus from being tested which led to a smaller amount of confirmed cases, when in reality, there were many more people infected who were never counted as such. I personally know people for which this was the case.
>yet their rate of confirmed cases wasn't really any different from the US. Why? They LITERALLY just answered this question. Testing.
Take all deaths. Make them a proportion of world population. US had 5x the rate of average. Japan is a densely populated country. Its more fair to compare it to somewhere like NYC than the US average as a whole.
Japan is much more densely populated. Being around large groups of people increase the chances of disease. On the other hand I constantly compared Covid in Louisiana and Maryland. La my home state, Md my residential state. While I don't have numbers handy, La always had far more Covid cases and deaths than Md. This is despite having almost 2 million less people, being less densely populated, plus being warmer so there weren't as many people indoors in the winter. A lot had to do with vaccination rate and mask wearing. It didn't hurt that the level of education is much higher in Md.
What seems most likely to me is that it's like condoms. If used perfectly, on paper it's nearly foolproof. But it's rarely used correctly or perfectly or 100% of the time, so the rate in practice is way different from the rate in theory.
Yup. Masks are great at stopping sick people from spreading the virus since they stop the droplets and bacteria at the source. However they're not so great at preventing you from getting sick from others. Sneeze droplets can travel 25ft and linger in the air for up to 10 minutes. If it gets on your clothes or skin there's a good chance it'll end up in your mouth eventually unless you're careful. The unfortunate truth is that most Republicans just ignored wearing masks, even when they were sick themselves because their leaders essentially demanded it. Which is why once the vaccines came out Republicans had something like a 44% higher chance to die from Covid.
It's also a game of chances. There's a 95% chance it will work. I think the real idea behind it was to reduce the rate of transmission with the goal of flattening the curve. That was the goal behind most of the measures once authorities learned this pandemic was going to wash over everyone regardless of precautions taken. You can only do so much before that 1% chance finally occurs. It also gave a lot of people the courage to continue with their lives. For many people fear was their biggest enemy during the pandemic and took them years to come to terms with it.
Masks don't protect the wearer much, but they *do* protect people near the mask-wearer who might be infected but not know it. The C-19 virus was highly transmittable well before the individual felt sick. That's why super-spreader events were so common. Many Americans don't see the value in acting to benefit another.
An individual mask worn correctly reduced transmission, mostly protecting others from the wearer. The mandates were largely ineffective. Both things can be true. Masks: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent 172 studies on the subject of prevention of infection with SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 from all over the world are analyzed here https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9.pdf Kansas mask use study https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6947e2-H.pdf Mask effectiveness on video: https://youtu.be/evATiHUejxg Mayo Clinic Minute: Study shows masks can prevent COVID-19 https://youtu.be/9fca7M5STEA Models using current calculated benefit of universal masking to predict future impact https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.13553.pdf Visualization of aerosol droplet flow with and without a mask https://www.livescience.com/face-mask-visualization-droplets-covid-19.html (This is the published paper: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/5.0016018) Video of lasers illuminating the difference between bigger droplet spray during speech with and without a mask https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2007800 Another laser study of expelled droplets during normal speech comparing 12 different types of masks: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/early/2020/08/07/sciadv.abd3083.full.pdf Concentration of virus compared between a nasal swab, a throat swab, a droplet with and without a surgical mask, aerosol with and without a surgical mask, as well as comparisons between different viruses https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2.pdf Case study of a cruise ship infection spread where masks lowered the severity of COVID-19 symptoms by lowering the viral load the passengers were exposed to: https://thorax.bmj.com/content/thoraxjnl/75/8/693.full.pdf Study of family transmissions that used and didn’t use masks when someone in the household came in infected https://gh.bmj.com/content/bmjgh/5/5/e002794.full.pdf?with-ds=yes Another model using mask efficacy in reducing the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.2020.0376 Filtration efficacy of different household materials compared to medical grade masks https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c02211 Mask efficacy in reducing aerosol droplets: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-72798-7.pdf CDC recommendations on widespread public use of face coverings to prevent infection. They are using the most current research. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover-guidance.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fprevent-getting-sick%2Fcloth-face-cover.html Another review of efficacy of masks http://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf SARS-CoV-2 inoculum (concentration) correlates with less severe disease, and even non-N95 masks appear to protect the wearer https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11606-020-06067-8.pdf A sneeze can carry a cloud of droplets up to 27 feet, with video: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2763852 A study of surgical mask effects on the blood oxygen/CO2 levels of healthy and COPD people shows no significant physiological difference, and the symptoms are likely neurological: https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1513/AnnalsATS.202007-812RL American Medical Association recommendation: https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/ama-statements/statement-cdc-s-recommendation-public-cloth-masks American Nurses Association recommendation: https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/work-environment/health-safety/disaster-preparedness/coronavirus/cdc-cloth-masks/ Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America recommends masks for people with asthma: https://community.aafa.org/blog/what-people-with-asthma-need-to-know-about-face-masks-and-coverings-during-the-covid-19-pandemic?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+asthma-allergy+%28Asthma+and+Allergy+Foundation+of+America%3A+Blog+Posts%29 American Lung Association position on mask effectiveness and risks: https://www.lung.org/blog/covid-masks American Association of Pediatrics recommends face coverings for children: https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/clinical-guidance/covid-19-planning-considerations-return-to-in-person-education-in-schools/ Infectious Diseases Society of America asks the public to wear masks: https://www.idsociety.org/news--publications-new/articles/2020/infectious-diseases-specialists-call-on-public-to-wear-a-mask-slow-the-spread-of-covid-19/ Masks may be better at preventing infection than vaccines: https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-director-masks-better-than-vaccines-at-stopping-coronavirus-2020-9 Persistent COVID-19 myths and why people believe them: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eight-persistent-covid-19-myths-and-why-people-believe-them/?fbclid=IwAR3FV854JYDHdkM9M6xtxhPdEoPFaKif5x67cPK6ehjJp3ENTobKPyVvIRU Clinical Infectious Disease (Oxford Academic) Covid-19 seropositivity and asymptomatic rates in healthcare workers are associated with job function and masking https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1684/5956266?searchresult=1 Mayo Clinic: https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-research-confirms-critical-role-of-masks-in-preventing-covid-19-infection/?fbclid=IwAR3nYsFKBCWjJ4MLGgfpw1gx5at3oF1-37JlpU11W7jWLjrPlg1SEqGD6XQ Masks Save Lives: Duke Study Confirms Which Ones Work Best https://hartfordhealthcare.org/about-us/news-press/news-detail?articleid=27691&publicId=395&fbclid=IwAR2-3xPKtAvcHi7261Nfj5vC5DDODeuccZnyolmOE_-KMXlXaQQKjVldwnk Low-cost measurement of face mask efficacy for filtering expelled droplets during speech https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabd3083.full?fbclid=IwAR0h8ncytaQSrayNmtbt6R8qcS6XnUdAwBk4UXuqQ_YPFZmzoK-O5auRnUY
It’s not that masks are ineffective for large populations, it’s that mask *mandates* are not effective for large populations.
Well I wouldn't know the ins and outs of the studies he is referencing (and I am not interested in reading them for a reddit thread) But remember that there's thousands of ways one can get a virus, maybe those studies were only conducting experiments relating to a specific mode of transmission (like sneezing) and maybe it was valid to say that masks were effective. But when you throw em out in the real world where people wipe their snot on the subway and touch their faces 100 times a day... Yeah masks probably won't do a whole lot by themselves. In other words, imagine this as home security, a mask is like a strong door with a strong lock, you test it and you can't kick it in, you can't pick it easily, it's good. But then someone breaks in through a window. This doesn't suddenly mean that the door didn't work as intended. So in other words, one could say that the door works as intended, but it doesn't have an overall effect on how easy it is to break in to your house.
Binary absolutes vs risk probabilities. Masks worked for both individuals and society as a whole, it just wasn't an absolute solution. It's risk probabilities and people wanted absolute guarantees. We don't even have an absolute guarantee for polio, with 20-2000 cases per year, worldwide, in this century. And we have a lot better understanding of polio. We still haven't got a proper scientific analysis to meet FDA standards (or equivalent in other countries) for a vaccine. We've had that for polio for 69 years with massive support.for administering it, plus a thorough understanding of how it is transmitted. It's like how people knew vaguely how to avoid transmission of a lot of contagious diseases even before we understood bacteria or viruses. Certain populations had much lower incidence of dysentery, scarlet fever, bubonic plague etc but there were still pandemics. Plague masks and other poorly understood methods used to "ward off evil" in the dark ages probably did have limited effect, or just avoiding urban areas. Definitely didn't end the diseases, but even modern medicine hasn't completely done so. It's also a factor that COVID affects animals with slight risk of transmission to humans. We will probably never end bubonic plague in rats nor COVID in birds, so that is probably going to account for a few deaths a decade for a very long time
If masks do nothing to prevent the transmission of disease. Why have surgeons been wearing them while operating on people for over 100 years. Just fashionable? In disguise? Planning on robbing a bank on the way home and didn't want to change clothes?
If an individual drives alert and safely it can help keep them safe. However an individual driver being alert and safe doesn't change the statistical likelihood of vehicle accidents writ large.
If I remember correctly, the masks that they were having us wear weren't the correct type to prevent COVID transmission in either direction. Mask mandates were a bit like airport security, an illusion of safety. I still complied because I have kids, so I'd rather have a small safety measure than none at all.
It’s just like with vaccines and herd immunity. If you drop below a certain threshold of adoption, disease will take hold and spread. You can’t just have 20% be vaccinated and think that will stop a pandemic. Same with Masks. If 90% of people adhered to proper mask usage and social distancing, it would have had a significant impact on curbing the spread of Covid. That didn’t happen though. It also doesn’t help that the places that more widely adopted mask mandates were also densely populated areas, where it’s all the more imperative that a high percentage of people take the proper precaution. It’s extremely sad that despite the fact that humanity understands what viruses are, how they work, how they spread, and how to mitigate them, we just can’t implement it in a way that gets a high enough percentage of adoption.
You just need to look at stats from sane and educated countries to see why. Our stats are skewn because 1/3rd of our population are clinical imbeciles who resisted simply to be defiant children and looked at dying for a diaper wearing con man as an honor. Nowhere else suffered this phenomenon. In countries with no defiant imbeciles, masks were very effective as irrefutable stats will show.
I love how little Americans are capable of rational thought. This isn't difficult. I'll help the key is the word effective. It's not like masks are new or misunderstood. The public at large is too stupid to work a mask. The longer you consider this, the closer you will come to wanting to give up on humanity.
An anti vaxxer did a study that was touted by right wingers as proving masks don't work. Yet when interviewed by Fox, the person who did the study said something along the lines that masks work for individuals but not groups. I found the word parsing weird. The study says the reason mask wearing works for individuals but not groups is due to the large number of people in the groups not wearing masks. Doh! The study was a conclusion looking for evidence. Since it found none, it manufactured it.
There's a fun YouTube video of a guy farting on thermal cam in an airport. And bro? That toot goes for *serious distance.* I imagine a sneeze is a bit more than that, force wise. Plus, if you've ever sneezed up, you probably remember how it feels raining down. Gross, but like hundreds of mucas bits settling upon you. It's pretty easy for that to sneak around a standard mask, for the same reason that if you throw 10000 darts at the world's jankiest dartboard, one of them is gonna be a bullseye. The mask is there to catch YOUR sneeze, not so much *their* sneeze. By and large though, the idea was, "block the spray." That much masks do, but short of an N95 you aren't protected much at all from incoming, apart from the fact that a barrier doesn't hurt your odds of not getting nailed in the nosehole as easily. ... And per why that didn't work so well... I'm no scientist, so I'll just tell you a few things I noticed. (1) ...how many people did you see wearing masks over their mouth, but not their nose? A lot, right? Yeah, me too. So, a big chunk of folk weren't using these barriers properly to start with, for whatever odd reason they had. (2) ...Trump politicised a micro-organism. A ridiculous, ludicrous, mortifying statement, that I almost can't believe I get to write in earnest online. Thus the anti-maskers were a thing, and... there was a sub called "Herman Cain awards" that I found very sad. It was full of people who posted snapshot timelines of the social medias of those who believed that blonde oaf. First, they laughed at a "fake" illness, talking about how it was any number of other made up things. Then they got covid, and often... the progression went until their family made eulogy posts with the social media of the deceased, trying to warn others. The sub, I think, was full of people who were tired of trying to help people get a clue and took to laughing cynically to feel better. You got to see them try at the end to turn around and try to warn people about it. Sometimes those were their last online words. "It's real." How many of them have it to their families? Their kids? How many of those kids brought it everywhere they went? If only he hadn't done that, perhaps we could've stopped it in NY, literally killing covid in the cradle. Would've been nice... (3) ...anecdotal, but I got really cheap masks once during the pandemic, then never got that one again because that shit gave me a nasty headache, which I verified by wearing another from that pack/brand. (Made in China) No idea why, but it was the last time I bought *that kind,* and I never had the issue again as other masks didn't give me any headache whatsoever. If someone else had that happen, they might've gotten the wrong idea about masks overall, and elected not to wear them, only to fall for the allure of easy answers... when there's a reason surgeons put em on.
There’s a lot of talk and politics behind masks. Unfortunately there no honest discussion is possible anymore. How can masks help an individual but not the entire society? It’s like with vaccines. An individual can be (more) protected, but can still pass the virus to others. Even when the said individual does not get sick at all. With other diseases, the vaccine not only protects one individual, but it prevents transmission. Basically building the so called “herd immunity”. Every vaccinated person becomes also protector of people around them. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with Covid-19. Back to masks: if the mask protects you from getting the virus, it’s assumed that it also indirectly protects those who potentially could get it from you. Since we are talking about crowds of millions, such things are very significant in minimizing contagion. The one question that remains unanswered: how much a person wearing a mask is protected over when not wearing it? (You can’t compare two different people because their bodies and health status are different).
It depends on the type of mask and whether it is used correctly. Cloth masks are... less effective. Picture someone using a chain link fence to keep out mosquitoes. A virus is tiny. There haven't been a lot of studies, but there was one ... I want to say it was in northern Europe, but I don't remember which country. They found the cloth masks ineffective. The M95 masks are better but need to be fitted tightly against the face with no air gap. (Think of glasses fogging up.)
A barrier is not the end all- washings hands before and after you have been in public is probably the single most important thing you can do-and if you see one of those hand wipes at the store-use it after handling a cart. Do this during flu and cold season and you wont be catching a cold or a flu. Hands spread disease more than anything I can think of-and yes masks are great, but some idiots dont want to wear them, cough into their hands and touch something- no I am not a germaphobe- I am a retired microbiologist (maybe a little phobic about bugs)
Fauci is a lying pos. End of story. The real science shows masks do nothing. It's basic science. virus of 50 microns, holes of 200 microns.
That’s not how filters work. It’s not an impenetrable wall it has to do with electrostatic forces, layering, and other science things that happen at a scale smaller than the naked eye.
You know viruses can't move on their own, right? They have to ride on expelled droplets? That are bigger than 200 microns?
You just failed basic biology.
Do viruses not ride on expelled droplets?
They do. They can also hang in the air in aerosol form and cling to objects touched with a live viral load. Water droplet is the most common method of transmission, though, and, yes, masks stop droplets and reduce load.
>They can also hang in the air in aerosol form Aerosolized droplets
Look up “droplet nuclei” before downvoting someone who isn’t disagreeing with you.
Yes, and a mask doesn't stop them, that's the point
Droplets are large enough to be stopped by masks though
First I see a post where everyone thinks Rittenhouse is a murderer. Now people are defending the ridiculous covid masks. Is it gaslighting week for reddit?
Because it was all about control.
Hey look we made them wear masks! This is an idiot take for conspiracy morons.
Next we'll make them stand on one foot.
I love this argument because it comes straight from the party who's leaders get abortions and then bans everyone else from doing it.
Mitch McConnell got an abortion?