Mask observation

[RocketMan]

Untrue.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776536

The study summarizes masks as 50% to 70% effective when worn correctly?  Color me unimpressed.

[dogmush]

The study summarizes masks as 50% to 70% effective when worn correctly?  Color me unimpressed.

[Shrug] my goal wasn't to impress you, but rather present data on the efficacy of mask wearing to combat community spread of the virus.  Lots of people say masks don't work, when the demonstrably do work.  If you'd like to argue they aren't  effective  enough to be worth the social and economic costs, that's a different and subjective arguement.

Interesting,  but other "studies"  disagree.  I'd like to think masks are atleast somewhat effective, given how often I've had one plastered across my face this past year making me feel like I was preparing for a career as a bandit .....    

Please post those studies so that we may compare methods, data, and outcomes.

[RocketMan]

[Shrug] my goal wasn't to impress you, but rather present data on the efficacy of mask wearing to combat community spread of the virus.  Lots of people say masks don't work, when the demonstrably do work.  If you'd like to argue they aren't  effective  enough to be worth the social and economic costs, that's a different and subjective arguement.

Please post those studies so that we may compare methods, data, and outcomes.

Actual human studies to determine the infectious dose of Covid-19 have not been done due to ethical concerns.  That is, the patient could die.  However, studies have been done that attempt to extrapolate the Covid-19 infectious dose from the behavior of other viruses, including some that are related to Covid-19.  From these studies it is thought that the infectious dose for Covid-19 is quite low.
If the outcomes of these studies are accurate, then a 50% to 70% mask efficacy is essentially useless.  That is why I was unimpressed.
You can look for these studies yourself.  They are easy to find.

[Ron]

There is a link in one of the covid threads I posted of many studies showing the lack of any impact mask wearing has on the spread of covid across the nations.

The mask crowd can rightly point out it may not stop the spread but possibly can lower how much virus to which you are exposed.

How that justifies what we have been subjected to I don't know. The country has lost its mind and actually doesn't look anything like the mythology we've been sold about ourselves.

Sheep and slaves.

[dogmush]

Actual human studies to determine the infectious dose of Covid-19 have not been done due to ethical concerns.  That is, the patient could die.  However, studies have been done that attempt to extrapolate the Covid-19 infectious dose from the behavior of other viruses, including some that are related to Covid-19.  From these studies it is thought that the infectious dose for Covid-19 is quite low.
If the outcomes of these studies are accurate, then a 50% to 70% mask efficacy is essentially useless.  That is why I was unimpressed.
You can look for these studies yourself.  They are easy to find.

Someone didn't read the link....

[RocketMan]

Someone didn't read the link....

Actually, I did.  And as stated, I wasn't impressed.

[MechAg94]

There is a link in one of the covid threads I posted of many studies showing the lack of any impact mask wearing has on the spread of covid across the nations.

The mask crowd can rightly point out it may not stop the spread but possibly can lower how much virus to which you are exposed.

How that justifies what we have been subjected to I don't know. The country has lost its mind and actually doesn't look anything like the mythology we've been sold about ourselves.

Sheep and slaves.

People tend to eject small amounts of stuff from mouths as they talk and such.  Wearing a mask blocks some of that from getting out into the air/surfaces.  Not sure what it helps with on the receiving side.

I was thinking about that with the NRA Annual Meeting coming up.  That has been very crowded at times.  I don't know if they will try to require masks.  I will have one with me.  The odds of someone there carrying COVID are high.  I am thinking about it. 

[Ben]

People tend to eject small amounts of stuff from mouths as they talk and such.  Wearing a mask blocks some of that from getting out into the air/surfaces.  Not sure what it helps with on the receiving side.

Though I think it was Millcreek who posted that covid particle sizes are very small. That doesn't mean a mask doesn't help. It's just a matter of how much, given mask type, proper fitting, etc.

I'm more concerned with the stuff like being arrested for not wearing one. That doesn't seem to help anyone with anything.

I believe we're at a point now where no one is going to be laughed at if they choose to wear a mask out and about. No different than if you choose to wear a ball cap someplace or not - nobody cares. It has simply become a common practice, and I think we can allow people to make their own decisions about it. I'd like to see a little of that leeway for people who choose not to mask up.

[dogmush]

Actually, I did.  And as stated, I wasn't impressed.

If you had you would have noted that the table, that is the main results of the paper, all talks about infection risks, and lowered infection outcomes.  How many individual particles make it or don't make it through are irrelevant to the results if you measure the infections, or drop in infection rates. (or case rates, as some of them do)

Wide spread mask wearing (even of cotton masks) has a large effect on slowing community spread of COVID-19.  Study after study after study as well as real world measurements all show this.  Even Ron's link, which I read and pointed out at the time, didn't actually show what he claimed.  It showed that widespread masking was somewhere between 40% and 80% effective at slowing community spread.

Again: If you'd like to make the argument, as Ron is, that the social costs of enforced widespread masking is worse than the gains in lowered community spread of COVID-19, that's a more subjective call, and that could be made.  However, trying to argue that masks don't slow community spread is provably, laughably, untrue.

[Bogie]

Okay. You are wearing your magic mask.
 
You're standing in line at 7/11, your morning cup of "don't kill the coworkers" clutched in your hand, and a wake'n'bake walks in the door, and you immediately smell  the dank weed...
 
Tell me more about how that mask is magically blocking the covids...

[MillCreek]

^^^An article on how smells get through a mask while virus-laden particles are blocked, at least by a N95 mask.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7447000/

[Ron]

^^^An article on how smells get through a mask while virus-laden particles are blocked, at least by a N95 mask.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7447000/

Guess how many N95 masks I see in public? maybe one every few weeks. Interesting data but really a little off point. Unless we all get issued N95 masks.

[Bogie]

Most of the N95 masks that I've seen have the little "outgoing air" vents. Which don't filter the wearer's exhalations.
 
At all.
 
And something to consider... When you hit the company restroom after the boss treated everyone to a few White Castle crave cases, keep in mind that quite a few smells ARE particulate.
 
They -might- help with wet projectile stuff. Drop(let)s bit enough to be caught...
 
Have you sneezed with a mask on yet? I've seen people pulling them down.
 
They're basically just virtue signaling.
 
Oh, and the blue ones mean that you support the patriarchy, and our police's thin blue line.
 
I'm REALLY surprised that companies are not pushing HEPA filtration and so on for home/business hvac - but you can't wear a furnace filter to show how much you care about showing that you care about showing that you care about showing how much you care.

[dogmush]

Okay. You are wearing your magic mask.
 
You're standing in line at 7/11, your morning cup of "don't kill the coworkers" clutched in your hand, and a wake'n'bake walks in the door, and you immediately smell  the dank weed...
 
Tell me more about how that mask is magically blocking the covids...

Smells are not carried by aerosolized droplets.  You know that, right?  And the smell of weed is not coming out of his upper respiratory tract through his mask.  It's a completely different mechanism.  Like, you can see him too, photons bounce off him and hit your eyes, but they don't carry COVID.

It's not a magic mask. I never claimed it was.  It's just a piece of fabric that stops a bunch of the droplets that carry respiratory viri.  If everyone is wearing one is significantly reduces community spread of (at least this) upper respiratory virus.

I'm not even a huge fan of masking.  I do it at work (now) because I am required to.  I avoid inside places that require a mask.  I agree that the "you have to wear it to the table at a restaurant, but are fine when you sit down" is  illogical, and at best a poor coping strategy.  I held last year, and still think that governors had authority to do, at most, a week or two of mandating, but then it needed to go to the legislative bodies.  years long "emergency mandates" are not great government.  Ron does have a point that the societal costs of mask mandates should at least be considered.

But none of the above changes the fact that it's pretty dang clear that widespread mask wear in a population significantly reduces community spread of COVID-19.  Probably other respiratory sicknesses as well.  It's not some evil conspiracy, it's basic germ theory backed by, literally, more than a century of medical practice, and 100's of solidly researched studies and papers.

[Bogie]

And I see people driving alone in their cars, A/C on, windows up, mask firmly affixed on their faces.

It makes them feel safe.
 
Because safety is good. You have to have safety. Perfect safety. If you wear that mask, you're never going to die.
 
I'm more worried about getting shot than I am about dying of the 'rona. Because I'm not a terminally ill nursing home patient in a facility with shared, unfiltered, HVAC.

[zxcvbob]

And I see people driving alone in their cars, A/C on, windows up, mask firmly affixed on their faces.

It makes them feel safe.
 
Because safety is good. You have to have safety. Perfect safety. If you wear that mask, you're never going to die.
 
I'm more worried about getting shot than I am about dying of the 'rona. Because I'm not a terminally ill nursing home patient in a facility with shared, unfiltered, HVAC.

I sometimes wear a mask in my car.  Because I'm making multiple stops where I want to wear it (or they want me to wear it) and I don't want to be taking if off and putting it back on any more than I have to.

[Bogie]

I've been at a light, and had someone yelling at me from their car (windows up...) waving a mask...
 
Just make sure that if you wear a mask that it isn't a white one - those support the KKK...

[RocketMan]

We could play dueling studies all week, DM.  For every study you find supporting mask wearing, I can find one that states the opposite.  I've seen a number of them.
Does that mean I would believe the studies I dig up?  No, it does not.  Covid-19 is the most politicized virus in recent history, save HIV.  It may even be more politicized than HIV.  Many, if not most studies are, in my opinion, tainted by the politics of the virus.  Who really knows which ones are believable?  I sure as hell don't.
I do put some credence in the 50%-70% efficacy of masks that your study cites.  Why?  It just feels right, no other reason than that.
At those efficacy rates, masks are unlikely to do much good at protecting an uninfected person from catching Covid from an infected person.  Given that the infectious dose of Covid particles is likely very low (you can catch the flu from as few a eighteen virus infused particles.  Other studies of similar Corona viruses show fairly low infectious dosages.), a healthy person standing next to a sneezing or coughing Covid sufferer while both are wearing masks, is likely to inhale some load of the virus.  After that, it's up to the newly exposed person's immune system whether or not they become infected.

[Ron]

This post has a smattering of links about mask ineffectiveness.

https://wmbriggs.com/post/32326/

[Bogie]

I wonder how many people put on their magic masks to "save other people" when they themselves are ill, and venture out, trailing a bunch of viral particles that are leaking through/around their talisman of virtue?
 

[Boomhauer]

I've been at a light, and had someone yelling at me from their car (windows up...) waving a mask...
 
Just make sure that if you wear a mask that it isn't a white one - those support the KKK...

You have Karen’s that criticise you for not wearing a mask in your own car? Holy *expletive deleted*ck

[Bogie]

My immediate neighborhood is a gentrified portion of St. Louis.
 
It seems that a LOT of people in the area watch a LOT of television news. And really take it to heart. We have had a bunch more tests done than our population, for instance. I think that some of the folks think that the free tests protect them from the FATAL (as per the headlines on the evening news) virus... I regularly see people wearing multiple masks (usually gaping...) AND gloves. Sometimes the blue things, sometimes jersey or leather gloves. Saw one guy with welder's gloves. He had a helluva hard time getting his wallet into play to check out.

[WLJ]

So, you are worried about West Nile Virus mosquitos entering your yard.
 
So you erect a 10' fence all the way around it.
 
And it's chain link.
 
And sometimes, at random, you take a few sections out.
 
My "former lab rat" self is NOT impressed.

This is misinformation.  Everyone knows you need TWO chain-link fences to keep out mosquitos.

You're both wrong, just put up a no mosquitos allowed sign. Works for guns right?

[Bogie]

Frankly, I think the whole kerfuffle is meant to keep folks from thinking about more important stuff...

[MillCreek]

Frankly, I think the whole kerfuffle is meant to keep folks from thinking about more important stuff...

They certainly have you thinking about masks and COVID 24/7.