Like wearing a condom, wearing a mask is just common sense
- Thread starter lenny2
- Start date
1) That study is re influenza, not covid19.
2) The url refers to the CDC who have supported the use of face masks re covid19, at least for the unvaccinated, as a measure that saves lives.
3) The study itself states: "A pooled analysis of 2 studies in university residential halls reported a marginally significant protective effect of a combination of hand hygiene plus face masks worn by all residents...Most studies were underpowered because of limited sample size, and some studies also reported suboptimal adherence in the face mask group.... In theory, transmission should be reduced the most if both infected members and other contacts wear masks...as with hand hygiene, face masks might be able to reduce the transmission of other infections and therefore have value in an influenza pandemic when healthcare resources are stretched.
4) With the exception of one reference to 2018, all mask references were from 2013 and earlier. Quite out of date with more recent studies since 2020.
5) "Face masks to prevent transmission of influenza virus: a systematic review
Abstract
Influenza viruses circulate around the world every year. From time to time new strains emerge and cause global pandemics. Many national and international health agencies recommended the use of face masks during the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic. We reviewed the English-language literature on this subject to inform public health preparedness. There is some evidence to support the wearing of masks or respirators during illness to protect others, and public health emphasis on mask wearing during illness may help to reduce influenza virus transmission. There are fewer data to support the use of masks or respirators to prevent becoming infected. Further studies in controlled settings and studies of natural infections in healthcare and community settings are required to better define the effectiveness of face masks and respirators in preventing influenza virus transmission.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20092668/
"The science is clear: Masks worked,..."
"Hong Kong was relatively unscathed by the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak and had a flatter epidemic curve than most other places, which observers consider remarkable given its status as an international transport hub. Furthermore, its proximity to China and its millions of mainland visitors annually would make it vulnerable.[2] Some experts now believe the habit of wearing masks in public since the SARS epidemic of 2003 may have helped keep its confirmed infections at 845, with four deaths, by the beginning of April.[2] In a study published in April 2020 in the Lancet, the authors expressed their belief that border restrictions, quarantine and isolation, social distancing, and behavioural changes such as wearing masks likely all played a part in the containment of the disease up to the end of March.[3] Others attributed the success to critical thinking of citizens who have become accustomed to distrusting the competence and political motivations of the government, the World Health Organization, and the Chinese Communist Party.[4] "
en.wikipedia.org
COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
What would be the point. Recent infection numbers rising in India is probably because of a number of factors i've already listed, including more infectious VOC, high density populations, covidiocy rising, irresponsible lifting of restrictions after things improved as a result of the restrictions, low numbers vaccinated, etc. If it weren't for masks, things would be even worse.
What has often happened during the pandemic is when infections rose extreme safety measures were recommended or mandated to stop the rising wave of infections. In many cases that included masks. If the wave of infections continued rising for a time after a mask mandate, that was not because masks are not effective, but because the powerful unstoppable wave was already in motion. Without the mask mandate the wave would have been even worse.
Likewise a powerful unstoppable storm may be coming to a Florida beach area. Putting up some protection on your dwelling will often spare it some damage. Without that protection the storm damage is more likely to be even worse.
This post above & below explains why graphs being posted by covidiots with infection numbers & mask mandates are worthless as regards the question of the efficacy of masks in reducing infection numbers & hospitalizations and deaths from covid19.
---------------------
"If you think that & your graphs provide any proof re whether or not masks work to save lives, then you are a clueless ignorant covidiot. But why else would you post them without any comment except a silly laughing icon. In so doing it just suggests you are a silly ignoramous.
As i have stated repeatedly before, infection numbers vary & are a result of many different factors, such as numbers tested, population density, individual immune systems, irresponsible covidiocy numbers, mask wearing, social distancing, lockdowns, numbers in poorly ventilated areas, the type of virus (VOC) circulating, numbers vaccinated, numbers recovered from infection with antibodies & other factors.
So you can't just look at one factor, e.g. alleged mask usage, & draw any valid conclusions based on infection numbers as to whether or not masks save lives."
Willie99;13499239 said:
That must be why health care workers have been wearing them since the cave man, eh. It must be they wear them just for show, like a hallowe'en costume. LOL.
"Influenza viruses circulate around the world every year. From time to time new strains emerge and cause global pandemics. Many national and international health agencies recommended the use of face masks during the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic. We reviewed the English-language literature on this subject to inform public health preparedness. There is some evidence to support the wearing of masks or respirators during illness to protect others, and public health emphasis on mask wearing during illness may help to reduce influenza virus transmission. There are fewer data to support the use of masks or respirators to prevent becoming infected. Further studies in controlled settings and studies of natural infections in healthcare and community settings are required to better define the effectiveness of face masks and respirators in preventing influenza virus transmission." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20092668/
CDC "Interim Recommendations for Facemask and Respirator Use to Reduce 2009 Influenza A (H1N1) Virus Transmission"
"...Facemasks1 should be considered for use by individuals who enter crowded settings, both to protect their nose and mouth from other people's coughs and to reduce the wearers' likelihood of coughing on others; the time spent in crowded settings should be as short as possible.
https://dfw.feb.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CDCRecommendationsforFacemasksRespirator.pdf
Sure, healthy health care workers wear them only because they're all so ugly. LOL. They actually "do not protect healthy people" from viruses entering via their noses & mouths. LOL.Willie99;13499239 said:
Yes, the virus can "enter through your eyes", but, like entering through your ass hole, that is considered to be much lower risk than entering through one's nose or mouth. Furthermore many people wear glasses, contact lenses, shields, etc, and regularly blink, which provides a degree of protection to the eyes.
Hardly. Just look at India, Brazil, etc. Even the USA unvaccinated are still recommended to wear masks. Even the vaccinated are to wear them in certain situations.Willie99;13499239 said:It appears this debate is behind us (thanks to time AND the vaccine)
Here are articles with some of the evidence in support of masks saving lives:
"Scientific Brief: Community Use of Cloth Masks to Control the Spread of SARS-CoV-2
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...sars-cov2.html
"An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19
...We recommend that public officials and governments strongly encourage the use of widespread face masks in public...
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
"Face Masks Against COVID-19: An Evidence Review":
https://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf
"Scientific Brief: Community Use of Cloth Masks to Control the Spread of SARS-CoV-2
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...sars-cov2.html
"An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19
...We recommend that public officials and governments strongly encourage the use of widespread face masks in public...
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
"Face Masks Against COVID-19: An Evidence Review":
https://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf
"the California region where masks are taboo – and cases are rising"
www.theguardian.com
‘Waiting to happen’: the California region where masks are taboo – and cases are rising
Rural northern California has been forceful in its pushback against masks, business restrictions and vaccine mandates
www.theguardian.com
said:
Didn't Fauci not know in Feb. 2020 that hospital personnel have been wearing masks since the cave man? Of course he did.
Later that same year scientific evidence emerged that wearing masks saves lives & mask use was embraced by the vast majority of the planet & health experts worldwide.
Also the difference between wearing masks as personal protection and wearing masks as a population-level intervention to reduce transmission rates.
Why? We've been over it before and they don't want to listen.
Masks are NOT personal protection in any significant way (High-level medical protection excluded.)
Masks reduce the rate of community transmission from infected individuals.
Population-wide small interventions reducing transmission knocks Reff down some.
Your odds of getting the disease are not much lower because you wore a mask.
Your odds of getting the disease are lower because everyone in your community wore a mask.
That's why all this nonsense about ONLY N-95 MASKS COUNT is besides the point.
Don't give a fuck what Phil says, the N95 masks work for me in helping reduce pollution.
That's hilarious
So just to be clear on this; a larger particle is able to spread, but somehow you maintain that a smaller particle is stopped?
The fact that Influenza was studied basically proves Covid spreads far easier (smaller particle + more transmissible)
Zika would be smaller than Covid but Influenza certainly is not
Personal interest. I may have missed this when shared before. Thanks.
"Specifically, the researchers found that during the first two weeks after states implemented the mask mandates, there was a 2.1 percentage-point decline in reported weekly Covid-19 hospitalization growth rates among adults ages 18 to 39, as well as a 2.9 percentage-point drop among adults ages 40 to 64. At three weeks after implementation, reported weekly Covid-19 hospitalization growth rates dropped by 5.5 percentage points among people ages 18 to 39 and among those ages 40 to 64, the researchers wrote."
"Average mask use across the United States has been declining since mid-February. Meanwhile, infection rates in some places have increased."
"...Around the same time that New Hampshire rescinded its rule, for example, COVID-19 cases in India began to surge. Strict mask mandates there had reined in the country’s first wave of infections last September.
"...“Wearing masks should probably be one of the last things we stop doing,” says Hoen, adding that she hopes no other countries are looking to the United States for guidance.
"The case for mask mandates was made relatively early in the pandemic. On 6 April 2020, the city of Jena, Germany, became one of the first communities in the world to require people to wear masks in public. Thomas Nitzsche, the town’s mayor, says he was sleepless for two nights before the policy went into effect. “I didn’t know if the public would comply,” he says. “Luckily, they did.”
"Researchers estimate that new cases in the city, home to around 110,000 people, dropped by about 75% during the 20 days after the rule was brought in3.
"But it wasn’t as simple as flipping a switch one day and then reaping the rewards. Evidence is building that, although a mandate can be a powerful measure, effective messaging and role models are crucial for public uptake.
"... Meanwhile, mask policies in most of the surrounding state of Thuringia and elsewhere in Germany lagged behind. There, officials generally adopted mandates only after case counts surged. Although there were no new COVID-19 cases in Jena five days after implementation of the mask mandate, for example, the virus continued to spread in nearby Erfurt, the state capital, and slowed only after a mask requirement was imposed, according to a preprint study4 by public-health leaders in Jena.
"It was a similar story around the globe, with a few exceptions. China and other Asian nations quickly adopted mask policies that probably prevented large-scale spread of the disease. Nitzsche says he was personally inspired by the Czech Republic, which began requiring masks in certain public places in mid-March 2020.
"...He and his colleagues used data from 401 regions in Germany to estimate the effect of mask mandates on SARS-CoV-2 transmission3. They took advantage of the regional variation to create artificial controls, and then estimated what would have happened had the intervention not been implemented. His team’s conclusion: requiring people to wear face masks decreases the daily growth rate of reported COVID-19 cases by more than 40%. The economists’ approach was “clever”, says Hoen. “This adds to the body of evidence that masks work.”
"In a similar study in the United States, published this January5, researchers found that a national mandate for employees to wear face masks early in the pandemic could have reduced the weekly growth rate of cases and deaths by more than 10 percentage points in late April 2020. The study suggests that this could have reduced deaths by as much as 47% (or by nearly 50,000) across the country by the end of May last year. Another preprint, published in October, linked mask mandates with a 20–22% weekly reduction in COVID-19 cases in Canada6.
"... The mandates do have an effect, “but when we looked at it, it was really the behaviour of the population that was a better metric”, says John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and a co-author of the study. “There’s a difference between government policy and community buy-in.”
"The research builds on evidence from hundreds of observational and laboratory studies, which find that masks protect both the wearer and the people around them. Masks can block viral particles that hitch rides on droplets and aerosols. And a study from the US National Institutes of Health, published this February, further suggests that the humidity that builds up inside a mask could help to bolster the lungs’ defences against pathogens8.
"Although it’s unlikely that the United States and other Western nations will adopt the same level of mask use beyond this pandemic, van der Westhuizen anticipates it will become much more common and acceptable than before. “It’s truly remarkable how widespread this new habit has become,” she says. “We have gained a valuable preventative tool.”
"She is referring to more than COVID-19 and its variants, or even influenza. Tuberculosis, for example, has been a leading cause of death in South Africa and a long-time focus of her research. Although data show that masks could help to control the spread of that disease, social norms and stigma have impeded their adoption14. When initial COVID-19 guidelines suggested only people with symptoms needed to wear masks, she says, her thoughts immediately went to tuberculosis, for which public-health officials have made similar concessions. Thankfully, mask recommendations evolved. “The pandemic has broken that previous stigma,” says van der Westhuizen.
"Hassig is reminded of other public-health interventions. The use of vehicle seat belts first arrived in the United States and United Kingdom as a recommendation, then became a law, for instance. Eventually, police began fining those who were non-compliant, and buckling up became the norm. “Very rarely does a public-health intervention wind up being widely accepted without some kind of enforcement mechanism,” says Hassig, who still wears a mask despite being fully vaccinated, in part to encourage mask wearing."
"Average mask use across the United States has been declining since mid-February. Meanwhile, infection rates in some places have increased."
"...Around the same time that New Hampshire rescinded its rule, for example, COVID-19 cases in India began to surge. Strict mask mandates there had reined in the country’s first wave of infections last September.
"...“Wearing masks should probably be one of the last things we stop doing,” says Hoen, adding that she hopes no other countries are looking to the United States for guidance.
"The case for mask mandates was made relatively early in the pandemic. On 6 April 2020, the city of Jena, Germany, became one of the first communities in the world to require people to wear masks in public. Thomas Nitzsche, the town’s mayor, says he was sleepless for two nights before the policy went into effect. “I didn’t know if the public would comply,” he says. “Luckily, they did.”
"Researchers estimate that new cases in the city, home to around 110,000 people, dropped by about 75% during the 20 days after the rule was brought in3.
"But it wasn’t as simple as flipping a switch one day and then reaping the rewards. Evidence is building that, although a mandate can be a powerful measure, effective messaging and role models are crucial for public uptake.
"... Meanwhile, mask policies in most of the surrounding state of Thuringia and elsewhere in Germany lagged behind. There, officials generally adopted mandates only after case counts surged. Although there were no new COVID-19 cases in Jena five days after implementation of the mask mandate, for example, the virus continued to spread in nearby Erfurt, the state capital, and slowed only after a mask requirement was imposed, according to a preprint study4 by public-health leaders in Jena.
"It was a similar story around the globe, with a few exceptions. China and other Asian nations quickly adopted mask policies that probably prevented large-scale spread of the disease. Nitzsche says he was personally inspired by the Czech Republic, which began requiring masks in certain public places in mid-March 2020.
"...He and his colleagues used data from 401 regions in Germany to estimate the effect of mask mandates on SARS-CoV-2 transmission3. They took advantage of the regional variation to create artificial controls, and then estimated what would have happened had the intervention not been implemented. His team’s conclusion: requiring people to wear face masks decreases the daily growth rate of reported COVID-19 cases by more than 40%. The economists’ approach was “clever”, says Hoen. “This adds to the body of evidence that masks work.”
"In a similar study in the United States, published this January5, researchers found that a national mandate for employees to wear face masks early in the pandemic could have reduced the weekly growth rate of cases and deaths by more than 10 percentage points in late April 2020. The study suggests that this could have reduced deaths by as much as 47% (or by nearly 50,000) across the country by the end of May last year. Another preprint, published in October, linked mask mandates with a 20–22% weekly reduction in COVID-19 cases in Canada6.
"... The mandates do have an effect, “but when we looked at it, it was really the behaviour of the population that was a better metric”, says John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and a co-author of the study. “There’s a difference between government policy and community buy-in.”
"The research builds on evidence from hundreds of observational and laboratory studies, which find that masks protect both the wearer and the people around them. Masks can block viral particles that hitch rides on droplets and aerosols. And a study from the US National Institutes of Health, published this February, further suggests that the humidity that builds up inside a mask could help to bolster the lungs’ defences against pathogens8.
"Although it’s unlikely that the United States and other Western nations will adopt the same level of mask use beyond this pandemic, van der Westhuizen anticipates it will become much more common and acceptable than before. “It’s truly remarkable how widespread this new habit has become,” she says. “We have gained a valuable preventative tool.”
"She is referring to more than COVID-19 and its variants, or even influenza. Tuberculosis, for example, has been a leading cause of death in South Africa and a long-time focus of her research. Although data show that masks could help to control the spread of that disease, social norms and stigma have impeded their adoption14. When initial COVID-19 guidelines suggested only people with symptoms needed to wear masks, she says, her thoughts immediately went to tuberculosis, for which public-health officials have made similar concessions. Thankfully, mask recommendations evolved. “The pandemic has broken that previous stigma,” says van der Westhuizen.
"Hassig is reminded of other public-health interventions. The use of vehicle seat belts first arrived in the United States and United Kingdom as a recommendation, then became a law, for instance. Eventually, police began fining those who were non-compliant, and buckling up became the norm. “Very rarely does a public-health intervention wind up being widely accepted without some kind of enforcement mechanism,” says Hassig, who still wears a mask despite being fully vaccinated, in part to encourage mask wearing."
