Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Masks are useless. A chain limo fence trying to keep bee’s out of your yard….and w omicron, the bee can’t even sting…

No they aren't and plenty of studies to prove it.

Please cite one study that involved people in a real life setting. I’ll wait.

https://www.poverty-action.org/publication/impact-community-masking-covid-19-cluster-randomized-trial-bangladesh
with explanation from one of the authors here: https://twitter.com/Jabaluck/status/1433036923610742789
"We conducted an intervention that increased mask-wearing by 29 percentage points using the techniques described [in the paper]. With this 29 percentage point increase in mask-wearing, we saw a 9% drop in serologically confirmed COVID. The reduction was larger in villages where we (randomly) used surgical masks than those where we used cloth masks; in surgical mask villages, we saw a 12% reduction in COVID overall and a 35% reduction among those aged 60+. Since severe morbidity and mortality are concentrated among the elderly, this suggests that community-wide masking can be an extremely effective tool to combat COVID. If going from 13/100 to 42/100 people wearing masks leads to reductions of the magnitudes above, near universal mask-wearing (as is possible with enforced mandates in some areas) might lead to substantially larger reductions. As noted, we find especially convincing evidence that surgical masks are effective. Cloth masks reduce COVID symptoms, but the effect we find on symptomatic infections (confirmed via blood tests) is driven by surgical masks. Cloth masks are likely better than nothing, but surgical masks or masks with higher filtration efficiency should be preferred to cloth masks where available."

And a lab study of different types of masks: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02786826.2020.1862409
"We used a cough aerosol simulator with a pliable skin headform to propel small aerosol particles (0 to 7 µm) into different face coverings. An N95 respirator blocked 99% (standard deviation (SD) 0.3%) of the cough aerosol, a medical grade procedure mask blocked 59% (SD 6.9%), a 3-ply cotton cloth face mask blocked 51% (SD 7.7%), and a polyester neck gaiter blocked 47% (SD 7.5%) as a single layer and 60% (SD 7.2%) when folded into a double layer. In contrast, the face shield blocked 2% (SD 15.3%) of the cough aerosol."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Masks DO work - it's basic physics. N95 > surgical > cloth but cloth is still better than nothing.

https://twitter.com/j_g_allen/status/1476176934568611843

No one is saying that N 95 masks don’t work. We’re just concerned that we were gaslit for two years that people who wear scarves or bandanas over their mouths and noses were somehow more responsible than people who wore no mask at all. Again, if MoCo was serious about Covid they would mandate N95 masks and provide them free of charge to residents. They would also not accept people who have J&J or J&J boosters as being fully vaccinated and would order these vaccines off the shelves in favor of Pfizer or Moderna.

What? People who worse scarves or bandanas WERE being more responsible than people who wore no mask at all! What part of "cloth is better than nothing" don't you understand?

Also, I do not understand the issue with mandates, either. Should we not mandate seat belts, or bike helmets, or speed limits, because "most" people will do what is safe? Many many people look to the government for *guidance* on these things. If it isn't required, it must be fine to go without! Just look at people on other threads saying they go to Frederick or VA to avoid mask mandates in MoCo.

And *even if* masks reduce transmission only by a TINY bit (too tiny to be statistically significant in a short RCT), population benefits are still HUGE. If COVID rates are doubling every 9 days, but after a mask mandate, they if they increased by 1.9 (instead of 2) every 9 days, after 180 days cases would be down by 60%.

I am *all for* STRONGER mask mandates, providing better masks for free to everyone, and stronger vaccine mandates (along with improving access to vaccines and paid sick leave for reactions, of course). But when the existing solution is better than nothing but not good enough, the correct response is NOT "well then we should just do nothing". Its to KEEP to the existing solution AND work toward STREGTHENING it. FFS.


Countries that introduced mandated masking within 30 days of the first case (mostly Asian) had *dramatically* fewer Covid-19 cases than those that delayed beyond 100 days (mostly Western). https://www.ajtmh.org/view/journals/tpmd/103/6/article-p2400.xml

New drugs & vaccines may have toxic side effects worse than the disease itself. Hence, it’s appropriate to require definitive empirical evidence from RCTs of the benefit-harm balance before they're introduced. But a bit of cloth over the face simply doesn’t have the same risks as a novel drug or vaccine, and *doing nothing* could conceivably cause huge harm. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32273267/