Study: 100% Face Mask Use Could Crush Second, Third COVID-19 Wave (sfgate.com) 340
"A new modeling study out of Cambridge and Greenwich universities suggests that face masks may be even more important than originally thought in preventing future outbreaks of the new coronavirus," reports SFGate:
To ward off resurgences, the reproduction number for the virus (the average number of people who will contract it from one infected person) needs to drop below 1.0. Researchers don't believe that's achievable with lockdowns alone. However, a combination of lockdowns and widespread mask compliance might do the trick, they say. "We show that, when face masks are used by the public all the time (not just from when symptoms first appear), the effective reproduction number, Re, can be decreased below 1, leading to the mitigation of epidemic spread," the scientists wrote in the paper published Wednesday by the Proceedings of the Royal Society A.
The modeling indicated that when lockdown periods are combined with 100% face mask use, disease spread is vastly diminished, preventing resurgence for 18 months, the time frame that has frequently been cited for developing a vaccine. It also demonstrated that if people wear masks in public, it is twice as effective at reducing the R number than if face coverings are only worn after symptoms appear.
The masks don't have to be top-of-the-line surgical or respirator masks. Homemade coverings that catch only 50 percent of exhaled droplets would provide a "population-level benefit," they concluded.
Another review funded by the World Health Organization and published in the journal Lancet also concluded "that data from 172 observational studies indicate wearing face masks reduces the risk of coronavirus infection," according to the Washington Post.
A former director of America's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday, "It's a lot less economically disruptive to wear a mask than to shut society, so I can't understand some of the resistance to mask wearing."
The modeling indicated that when lockdown periods are combined with 100% face mask use, disease spread is vastly diminished, preventing resurgence for 18 months, the time frame that has frequently been cited for developing a vaccine. It also demonstrated that if people wear masks in public, it is twice as effective at reducing the R number than if face coverings are only worn after symptoms appear.
The masks don't have to be top-of-the-line surgical or respirator masks. Homemade coverings that catch only 50 percent of exhaled droplets would provide a "population-level benefit," they concluded.
Another review funded by the World Health Organization and published in the journal Lancet also concluded "that data from 172 observational studies indicate wearing face masks reduces the risk of coronavirus infection," according to the Washington Post.
A former director of America's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday, "It's a lot less economically disruptive to wear a mask than to shut society, so I can't understand some of the resistance to mask wearing."
What really surprises me (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: What really surprises me (Score:2)
Re: What really surprises me (Score:5, Interesting)
Same here. I have a problem that I apparently produce more sweat than my skin can push out, so it gets stuck under the skin and turns into zit-like blisters. Going to the store to shop for the next two weeks while wearing a mask is enough to give me zits around my nose and on my forehead, I can't imagine what it would be like to wear one for 8-10 hours every single day.
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Did I mention how friggin' painful they are? I feel sorry for your friend but as I am nowhere near Spain and have the option to stay at home I'm gonna go with that.
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Taking one for the team.
Alright.
This honestly sounds like the common fallacy that unless a problem is The Worst Problem then it's not a problem at all. Obviously I don't want to either catch or transmit corona, but I would really like a solution that doesn't involve filling my facial skin with infected pus.
Re: What really surprises me (Score:5, Informative)
Only the few people who are at risk need to wear masks. 99% of the population don't need them.
This is completely and utterly wrong. The masks are somewhat helpful for protecting yourself. The are much more helpful for protecting other people. The most important people to have wearing masks is everyone else.
Now it's true that you could decide you don't care about other people over 60 and want to "harvest" them. It's also true that if you do that, anybody that is over 60 or has a relative over 60 should avoid you like the (literal) plague.
Re: What really surprises me (Score:5, Informative)
This is not just about people over 60. Many perfectly healthy and sportive people in their thirties and fourties survive the coronavirus but with lasting damage to their lungs, the heart or their nervous system.
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This is not just about people over 60. Many perfectly healthy and sportive people in their thirties and fourties survive the coronavirus but with lasting damage to their lungs, the heart or their nervous system.
Yeah, you are right. We should also add that recent studies showed that the 1918 pandemic caused health problems years later even in those that were thought to have recovered. If we get the same it can be a nightmare and hold back the economies of the plague countries for decades to come. Not something we can be sure about now but also definitely not something that can be ruled out.
Re: What really surprises me (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, your fact is wrong. While COVID-19 may not kill 99% of the population (or only kill 3 Million people in the US, an easy sacrifice to make, I guess?), it does cause long lasting health conditions in an alarmingly high number of patients with serious symptoms.
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Nobody else has to sacrifice their livelihoods and lives for you.
Let's just skip the rest of your stupidity for now and just focus on this. Which country do you think is going to do better economically, New Zealand which has completely stopped Coronavirus and is now working on restoring it's economy, or the USA, which could, even if it had waited until Trump realised it was a problem and reacted on 13 March, could by now have eliminated the virus but is, instead, just getting started?
Yes, people at serious risk of coronavirus are a minority - much bigger than you seem
Re: What really surprises me (Score:3)
Not only xenophobic, but also completely ineffective. Most of the infected entering th me US on March 13th were coming from countries other than China. No, trump was told what he needed to do long before March 13th and not only did he ignore those instructions, he actively worked against them, putting the health and security of the nation at risk in order to maintain his image (at least in his mind and those of his cult followers).
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"your side". It's tragic scum like you are allowed to exist, not only being dumb but also creating a poisonous society.
Re: What really surprises me (Score:4, Informative)
Reducing the effects of an infection even if not severe enough to need hospitalization isn't of interest? Selfish bastard.
So I'm going to tell you this story the help you understand. A good friend of me and my gf who we have known for 20 years just basically committed suicide due to the lock-down completely destroying him professionally and socially. I'm not going to go into the details, and I can't blame the lock-down 100% but it took someone who was 10% down a dark path and express-laned him to the end. While I'm sure the total media numbers and horribly flawed statistical analysis that you assume are 100% accurate scare you, they aren't really out of bounds with normal sociality functioning by the margins you assume. However, economic and social effects of the lock-down are. And they have negative health impacts too. My friend being one of them. My father with just diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and he is going to have to delay treatment for a couple of months due to the lock-down. So there are two. Now the plural of antidote isn't data but even a cursory data analysis would show that the negative health effects of the lock-down are very likely to be far greater than the negative health effects of the virus.
Now here is where this is talking about you. You raise yourself upon this moral high-ground. Claiming to know what's best for everyone because the media scared the shit out of you using bad statistics and bad science (hint what is the sampling bias impact of only analysing testing data when you have to have symptoms or be famous to get tested). And the truth (whether you know it or not) of this is that you are just psychologically dependent upon feeling this moral high ground. But did you ever consider if you are horribly wrong about all of this? What if the sampling bias so embedded in the data makes the analysis useless and instead leaders are acting out of fear? Consider the huge cost to so many people's lives that the shutdown entailes. Just because you and I can work on code from home doesn't mean the majority of the population can. Most people's jobs rely upon interacting with other humans directly. I don't think you have any concept of the hell that this is putting others (who you claim to care for) through. And that truly makes you a monster.
Re: What really surprises me (Score:5, Insightful)
Non-medical masks are mostly for protecting others, not yourself. Thankfully, in my area (an early hotspot), a significant majority of people seem to be wearing them now. But there are still occasional holdouts, of course. They probably figure "I'm young and/or healthy, so I'll take my chance without a mask." That misses the point entirely.
It may help slightly in that regard, but the real significance is to prevent you from spewing potentially virus-laden droplets when they launch en mass from your mouth, even when just talking, let alone if you sneeze or cough. This virus has a period in which you can't tell that you're sick, but you still might be able to transmit it to others.
This is the point of wearing masks - it's a courtesy to others, an altruistic act, a simple precaution that, if everyone cooperates, drastically reduces the spread of viruses. You're inconveniencing yourself a small amount, with little benefit to yourself, in order to help make everyone else around you a tiny bit safer. When people around you are wearing masks, they're likewise helping to protect you and your family.
I'm an optimist at heart, so I want to believe most people that aren't wearing masks just misunderstand the whole point, and actually aren't that callous and uncaring towards their neighbors. Maybe that's just naive of me. But in the chance hope this is the case, please, I'm asking you do a bit of reading and educate yourself on this matter.
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Non-medical masks are mostly for protecting others, not yourself. Thankfully, in my area (an early hotspot), a significant majority of people seem to be wearing them now. But there are still occasional holdouts, of course. They probably figure "I'm young and/or healthy, so I'll take my chance without a mask." That misses the point entirely.
Not sure what country, or part of the US, you are in, but I can tell you that in the deep south, not only is almost nobody wearing masks, it's actually considered a point of pride not to wear one.
We went to Walmart the other day, and out of the dozens of people we saw in the store, aside from us literally one person, an elderly woman, had a mask on. Nobody was following the "one way" markings they had on the floors, and there were no attempts at social distancing. People here are trying to make it a polit
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No, it's pretty long, after all. I did read the article though, and it stated:
As has been well-publicized, wearing a mask primarily protects others from yourself, rather than the other way around. It is not a sign that you consider others a danger.
And there's this:
Professor John Colvin, coauthor from the University of Greenwich, said: “There is a common perception that wearing a face mask means you consider others a danger. In fact, by wearing a mask you are primarily protecting others from yourself.
Could you point to where in the study it stated otherwise? I was under the impression they were just talking about lowering the R rate in general. But I'm not interested enough to read through the whole paper.
Re: What really surprises me (Score:5, Insightful)
You sound like a true mouthbreather.
Are the "mouthbreathers" the people I see wearing their masks below the nose?
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Because looting isn't a crime punishable by death...
Police, as we are arguing about today, have to be held to a higher, professional standard of conduct than civilians defending their own lives and property. Tell that black fireman in Minneapolis who put his retirement savings into opening a bar only to watch it burn in the rioting that looters shouldn't be shot by people defending their own.
Re: What really surprises me (Score:4, Interesting)
Because looting isn't a crime punishable by death.
Apparently you've never been anywhere after a major disaster. Looting is indeed a crime punishable by death. Depending on where you are living in the world right now, with the shitshow due to the lockdown you may very well be close to that too.
Not in any of the more civilized countries of free society. People in China can disappear for speaking out against the government. I guess we should do the same, huh?
But to just go straight to the shooting...don't you realize that use of excessive force by the police is how this whole mess started? Of course you don't.
Hmm...are we sure on that still? I mean we're talking about the career criminal who was combative with multiple officers, and the toxicology report says he was on at two different illegal drugs, and tested positive for trace among one more. Isn't it very...interesting, that while the police are demanding that the state releases the bodycam footage, the state is refusing to do so.
Yep...sure is. It really is.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure on that. We've got the video from then the officers first arrived on the scene ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] ). He doesn't seem to be resisting much. One of the officers goes over briefly to assist the second officer, but then is so unconcerned that he actually leaves his partner alone to handle George while he goes over to speak with another female from the car who is being completely cooperative. By this point George is already in handcuffs, and complies completely by walking to the building and sitting down. He sits there calmly for several minutes, then gets up and walks with him. He struggles briefly (not with the officer, but more with himself, like he's in pain because the cuffs are too tight or something. That lasts a few seconds and the he walks across the street with the officers without fighting. He does fall to the ground at the car, but the other officer (who is right there) is still completely unconcerned and dealing with something in his squad car door.
So yeah, it all looked pretty cooperative at that point. It appears he may have struggled a bit getting in the cop car. Without further video we can't tell how badly, but lets assume the worst. Let's call it resisting arrest. Last I checked, that wasn't punishable by death anywhere. I've seen hundreds of police videos where people resisted getting into a cop car. Even if the person shouldn't do that, It's not all that uncommon of a reaction apparently, and all those other cops managed to not kill the suspect because of it. And I'll remind you that George was handcuffed by this point. He wasn't exactly a major threat to officers.
And you find it interesting that the body cam footage is behind held until trial? I don't find that interesting at all. In fact, I find it pretty common. When video does come out before any trial, it's usually because it's supportive of the officers. When the video is incriminating of the officers, more often than not that doesn't come out until trial (in hope that a settlement can be reached with the victim or victim's family, and then the actual proof can be swept under the rug, so that they can be left with the plausible deniability of "but he was on drugs...so clearly something bad must've happen"). But you find that interesting. I mean, yeah, I guess that would be interesting thinking on their part if the video exonerated the police. "Holy shit, we've got all this rioting in our state, and it's all for nothing. These officers did nothing wrong, and the video proves it. I know what I'll do..... I'll keep the video a secret, so that people can keep rioting...yeah that's a GREAT idea".
Likewise, I don't find it at all surprising that an officer who thinks lethal force is an appropriate reaction to (presumably) resisting arrest would believe that video of someone resisting arrest would exonerate him for using lethal force.
Re:What really surprises me (Score:5, Insightful)
something so obvious...
Dunning Kruger strikes again. If you think this is obvious, you have no clue how complex and nuanced the questions are.
For example, the effectiveness of masks for the general public depends on how much transmission is airborne vs formite.
Countries such as Australia and NZ have contained the epidemic without masks, while some mask-wearing countries are still seeing large outbreaks.
It would seem intuitive that makes are beneficial in some places such us underground public transport, but all we know for sure is that it reduces transmission if an infected symptomatic person wears a mask. But staying home is much better. Are masks harmful by giving symptomatic (undiagnosed) people a license to go out in public?
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Are masks harmful by giving symptomatic (undiagnosed) people a license to go out in public?
Ummmm ... many coronaviris transmitters are asymptomatic.
Even the ones who get symptoms were probably infectious long before symptoms appeared.
Mandatory masks in public would fix that.
Re:What really surprises me (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummmm ... many coronaviris transmitters are asymptomatic.
Err ... no. Well, maybe. Citation needed. We fear it, but no evidence yet. Perhaps we should assume this for now.
Again, these things really are not clear or obvious, if you are paying attention.
We are now free of community transmission here, thanks to early action of border closing, contact tracing, and a functioning universal public healthcare system. Masks are rare.
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At two stores only about 20% seemed to be wearing masks (down from 60% two weeks ago)
Where is this?
Where I live, masks are mandatory in all shops.
If you don't have a mask on, they are not allowed to let you in.
You are also required to sanitize your hands. There is a big dispenser by the entrance.
Re:What really surprises me (Score:5, Informative)
Where is this?
Where I live, masks are mandatory in all shops.
If you don't have a mask on, they are not allowed to let you in.
You are also required to sanitize your hands. There is a big dispenser by the entrance.
Here, too. We also have lines painted on the floor at checkout queues in the large stores to help people keep their distance, you're not allowed to load your stuff on the conveyer until all the previous person's stuff has gone past the scanner, etc.
Only a totally retarded country would be doing anything else at this point.
O RLY (Score:2, Informative)
""It's a lot less economically disruptive to wear a mask than to shut society, so I can't understand some of the resistance to mask wearing."" - June CDC
February CDC: "The CDC does not recommend you wear masks" - https://twitter.com/CDCgov/sta... [twitter.com]
Re:O RLY (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it's not possible they've learned anything about this brand new disease between February and June.
Re: O RLY (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: O RLY (Score:5, Insightful)
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Healthcare providers should have already had a stockpile. The fact they didn't was willful neglect on their part
No it wasn't it was a result of cost-cutting by Trump's administration.
https://www.vanityfair.com/new... [vanityfair.com]
"Who knew?" - Donald Trump
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So whatever Obama had left when Trump took over was supposed to supply masks to the entire country? It figures that Obama had stockpiled billions of masks and then nasty old Drumpf came and threw them all in the garbage in a petulant fit of rage! Shocking!
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Obama created a pandemic response team, their task was to prepare the country.
They were in the process of doing it, then Trump.
https://billmoyers.com/story/p... [billmoyers.com]
Re: O RLY (Score:5, Insightful)
When there were very few cases it was a better strategy to prevent a run on masks
Shouldn't it be a better strategy for health officials to maintain credibility by not intentionally lying to the public?
Why Telling People They Don’t Need Masks Backfired [nytimes.com]
Re: O RLY (Score:4, Insightful)
When there were very few cases it was a better strategy to prevent a run on masks so health providers would have what they needed. As cases go up and masks become more available it becomes a better strategy to encourage public use of masks.
A better "strategy" for public is to maintain trust with the public. Giving out information that you know you will need to contradict yourself in less than 6 months is the recipe for complete loss of trust.
You think people generally like to be lied to and manipulated, even if you tell them afterwards "it is for the public good"?
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Because you knew back in February 2020 already, that this SARS-CoV2 was unlike the strains seen before, with other spreading patterns, other clinical syptoms and a high but unclear death rate.
As it was new, all you could do is give the information out you had at the time, while being sure that some of that information has to be updated or even contradict with new information coming in. Only because it was new, you didn't know
Re: O RLY (Score:5, Informative)
"So this means that you don't give out information to the public at all, right?"
No. The truth was that it was always stupid to tell people not to wear masks.
Wanting to preserve masks for health care workers is not a valid reason to lie. Just tell the truth. At the time, that was that while there had not yet been studies done to confirm the usefulness of masks for containing Covid, in general masks are an effective way to reduce spread of viruses, and that people should be making masks and wearing them. The only way that would have not been true is if the virus were truly airborne, i.e. spread by being carried on dust and in evaporated droplets which aren't caught by typical masks. If the goal was to prefer masks for health care workers, they should have said so.
They never had any evidence that masks were not useful, and in fact prevailing evidence says that they generally are useful, but they outright told us that they weren't, and that was a lie. They knew no such thing, and it turned out to be misinformation on all levels.
Lying harms credibility, and they willfully lied. There is no way around that.
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A better "strategy" for public is to maintain trust with the public.
Politicians get a weird dizzy sensation in their stomachs whenever they try to do that.
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I share your sentiment, but unfortunately it seems that there general public cannot handle the truth and a substantial fraction doesn't care about being lied to (Trump supporters come to mind).
Remember how all the toilet paper disappeared from the shelves within a day after the government telling people that Covid-19 is actually serious and affecting them? This happened in many countries on the first day of "stay at home except for essential grocery shopping". So i can't really blame the governments for not
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Re: O RLY (Score:5, Insightful)
Now they expect to backtrack and try to gaslight anyone who brings up the obvious inconsistencies.
So it's gaslighting when science learns something new that contradicts previous knowledge?
Re: O RLY (Score:4, Informative)
Now they expect to backtrack and try to gaslight anyone who brings up the obvious inconsistencies.
So it's gaslighting when science learns something new that contradicts previous knowledge?
It is not very previous - we have pretty good data on the differences in disease propagation in the Far East where everyone and their dog wears masks dating back to the first SARS pandemic.
To put it bluntly, the February WHO, CDC, etc advice had NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE. IT WAS ENTIRELY POLITICAL.
Re: O RLY (Score:2)
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Yeah, it's not possible they've learned anything about this brand new disease between February and June.
Personally, I was a little suspicious when they were saying, "Masks don't really help prevent the spread of Covid." While also saying, "Healthcare workers have a critical shortage of masks!". If masks weren't effective, then it's not a big problem if healthcare workers can't get them and you wouldn't see doctors wearing them all the time.
All they had to do was be honest from the start and say that masks are effective but are difficult to get, and publish plans to make our own. They probably killed thou
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To be fair, there are people (including doctors who I discussed with here) who honestly believe that normal people wearing masks will become more at risk. The idea is that they may stop social distancing and may also touch their masks. This always seemed like a silly patronizing attitude. Just tell people "masks are not perfect; wash your hands and remember to social distance and tell other people to do that too". Not everyone will get it but enough will, especially with some information posters hung up.
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Yeah, it's not possible they've learned anything about this brand new disease between February and June
Rates for pre-symptomatic transmission is higher than 25% [npr.org] and that was confirmed in field studies in April [Wei WE LZ, Chiew CJ, Yong SE, Toh MP, Lee VJ. Presymptomatic Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 — Singapore, January 23–March 16, 2020. MMWR Morbidity and mortality weekly report. 2020;ePub: 1 April 2020]. Thus the recommendation has changed, for areas where social distancing is not possible. However, it is important to note that asymptomatic cases are not yet enumerated [propublica.org]. Thus the effectiveness
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Re:O RLY (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, face masks have another advantage: they thwart ubiquitous video surveillance and face recognition. If any good comes out of the coronavirus, it'll be that it finally provided people who are concerned about privacy a good excuse out into the street with their face obscured.
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> good excuse out into the street with their face obscured
Burka or Hijab maybe? :)
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Unfortunately, infrared biometric scanners and cameras are already highly prevalent. An individual's thermal face print is as identifiable and unique as a fingerprint due to the ratio/measurements between major facial features.
Seems like you could prevent that with a layer of thermally-conductive material. It also needs to pass air, but a fine mesh of copper -- or, better yet, silver -- would probably smear the thermal signature pretty effectively. As a bonus, copper and silver have some antimicrobial properties, too.
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"they've been pretty consistent with the advice since."
Since willfully lying, you mean.
It's not consistency if you just ignore the parts you don't like.
They may have been consistent since, but that doesn't change the fact that they harmed their credibility with a deliberate lie that probably killed people.
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February CDC: "The CDC does not recommend you wear masks"
general public in Februrary (and Internet trolls in June): "The CDC said we shouldn't wear masks!"
what the CDC actually said: "We don't - at this point in time - have an opinion on that question."
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I can't find that particular quote but there's this [archive.org]:
Emphasis added. Remember, this was before cloth face
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Train to hold your breath longer?
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And you neglect to mention that N100 are a lot more expensive.
The masks they are referring to here aren't even N95. They're just to prevent you from coughing/sneezing droplets directly on other people.
"Information" is all over the map (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems like everything I learn about covid is contradicted a week later. Then it back one way, then the other.
Mathematical models have off by orders of magnitude. Standards for counting deaths have been changed. Effectiveness of social distancing seems to have conflicting outcomes.
On and on. I just don't believe anything about this anymore.
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Re:"Information" is all over the map (Score:5, Insightful)
On and on. I just don't believe anything about this anymore.
Welcome to science. :-)
That's how every deep dive into any topic works. At first you assume something, then do some research, it turns out your assumption was wrong. You dig deeper. Find out some parts of your assumption were right after all, and on and on it goes, until you've finally figured out which parts were wrong, which were right, which seemed right but are actually linked only by coincidence, not causation, etc. etc.
We, as a species, are still figuring this darn thing out, and what you see is simply active research in action. The problem is that the media isn't very good at labelling clearly what is established fact, what is a theory, what is a hypothesis and what the difference between those are. Then add those media which simply adds unsubstantiated ideas, wild guesses and ideologically motivited straight-out lies to the mix and quite frankly I'm surprised that we're not in an even bigger information chaos than we already are.
Re:"Information" is all over the map (Score:5, Insightful)
Public:"Oh snap! Ask science, they'll know what to do!"
Science:"That's weird, we'll look into it."
Public:"But we need answers noooooowwwwww"
Science:"Well, [preliminary recommendations]"
*****
Science:"Hey guys, we looked into it..."
Public:"Don't care anymore"
Science:"... and now based on better evidence..."
Public:"Here the scientists go changing their minds again"
Science:"... [better recommendations]"
Public:*throws up hands in exasperation*
Every time. Literally every time. Y'all figure out the next thing on your own see where that gets you.
Re: "Information" is all over the map (Score:2)
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Also, can't it be dangerous for those with breathing issues?
Severe allergies and I also have asthma. YES, I can't wear one of those masks all day every day, aside from making me claustrophobic (can you say panic attacks?) it drives my allergies, and therefore my asthma, crazy. The best I can do at work is something made of cloth that's open at the bottom so at least my exhalation isn't restricted, and I get some fresh oxygen that way too instead of rebreathing some of my own CO2.
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Plastic Face Shields? (Score:2)
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Enjoy your ventilator. Covid 19 takes a toll on the body. Some people have permanently lost their sense of smell and taste. One person had to undergo a lung transplant. At the very least the inflammation and fluid build up cause scarring.
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Re: Plastic Face Shields? (Score:3)
Re:Plastic Face Shields? (Score:5, Funny)
Over the last few years, the world has slid several notches towards turning into some kind of "dystopian future" scifi story.
If everyone were to wear a plastic face shield, at least we would all look the part.
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Just because something is not 100% effective doesn't mean you should not do it. Safety belts are OK, but cars could be made much safer if we used 5 point harnesses and helmets and neck rolls like they do in race cars. But that is not practical.
Wearing cloth or surgical masks in crowded public places is a pretty small ask in my opinion. I don't see much validity in your reductio ad absurdum argument
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No one really wants to wear one at all (Score:2)
Baffling response to face masks (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a long-term resident of Japan, where face masks are ubiquitous even when there is no global pandemic. As soon as COVID started picking up in Asia, long before it made its way to the US, people in Japan started masking up. Yes, it did lead to shortages in masks, which is a serious problem for people in the medical profession. But conversely, the widespread use of masks may very well have cut down the number of infections, which benefits the medical community because it keeps the number of patients low. I write all this with the caveats that I'm not a medical professional and there are many other factors which have likely helped Japan weather the pandemic relatively well, including a culture that already places emphasis on physical distancing*.
What was baffling is that the WHO actually recommended against masks at the outset**. The reasoning, apparently, is that masks make people more likely to touch their face, adding an entry route for the virus, or they just don't wear them properly, which gives a false sense of security; or that masks aren't 100% effective in preventing people from contracting the virus. I still see these lines of reasoning parroted today. Of course, none of these are actually arguments against masks. If someone is too stupid to wear a mask properly, that's the fault of said person, not the fault of the masks themselves. And do we really need intense studies to determine that having a covering over your face is better at preventing you from spewing your bodily fluids all over the place when you cough or sneeze than not having any covering on at all?
The pandemic has been an interesting study in how the "rugged individualism" of the US can really cause a tremendous amount of harm when there is a threat to society as a whole. Facing a problem as a society requires that people pull together and yes, sometimes make personal sacrifices for the greater good. I think that, in the grand scheme of things, asking everyone to wear a mask until an effective vaccine is developed is a pretty damn small sacrifice. But hey, since they don't protect you yourself, but rather protect other people from catching what you have, well, fuck everyone else, seems to be the prevailing attitude.
Although Japan has its fair share of problems, and we are not out of the woods yet by any means, I have been grateful every single day that I live in a society where people are willing to peacefully and for the most part uncomplainingly do little things that benefit everyone. And it's ironic, because Japan's postwar constitution (written by the Allies) guarantees more freedom than people have in the US! Japan has literally no legal authority to limit peoples' free movement, and yet rather than flipping the bird to their neighbors, everyone here hunkered down through the worst of it, and almost everyone is still wearing a mask when they go outside -- and things are already starting to return somewhat to normal. It's been absolutely bizarre to contrast that with what's happening in the US.
*Yes, I am aware that Japan tested a fraction of the number of people tested in other countries and that the actual infection rates are almost certainly much, much higher. That said, we don't have bodies piling up and hospitals being overrun, so I think it's safe to say that -- at least so far -- Japan has done relatively well with COVID.
**They also condemned Japan for effectively closing its borders to China when the outbreak started, which again turned out to be a move that very well may have prevented a serious and irrecoverable explosion in cases.
Re: Baffling response to face masks (Score:2)
The Japanese are an admirable nation, no doubt.
However, the rugged individualism has a different set of advantages. Saying 'no' to power or peer pressure is quite precious at times.
Creativity and free thinking go hand in hand.
And going with the crowd leads to a situation like WW2 where the Japanese outshone everyone in terms of atrocities.
I also wonder if they'd be that coherent in their behaviour if they were multicultural society. I think not...
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Funny, the Japanese don't seem to have any problem being innovative. And as for creativity? Well, in this den of geekdom I should say people should be quite familiar with the prodigious output of the Japanese creative industry.
In short, you can take your racist stereotypes and shove them up your ass.
Re:Baffling response to face masks (Score:4, Informative)
If the initial response to the virus had been "Continue with regular economic activity and gatherings, but social distance and wear a mask," I think Americans would've worn masks without complaints. (Ignoring the difficulty of acquiring masks early on, with hoarders and speculators rapidly buying up all the stock.) It's the forcing them to stay at home, not work, and end social gatherings which ticked them off. Refusing to wear masks is more symbolic rebellion, rather than an aversion to the masks themselves.
In the U.S., the reason given for instructing people not to wear masks was that the high-quality masks should be reserved for medical workers. We didn't get directives that even cloth masks were helpful until about two months in.
The problem I saw was that everyone focused on New York (and their horribly screwed up early response). Everyone was afraid that what was happening there was going to happen in their state. So they ended up hoarding equipment and supplies, waiting for a crush of patients which never materialized. In hindsight, the better response would've been to send medical equipment and supplies to New York, even if that meant hospitals in states which weren't yet seriously affected didn't have enough on hand for a worst-case crush of patients. That equipment turned out not to be needed because those states never experienced a worst-case crush of patients.
If you subtract New York (and neighboring New Jersey and Connecticut), the rest of the U.S. is handling the virus remarkably well. About on par with Canada and slightly worse than Germany. Those three states just skew the U.S. stats because they're experiencing a fatality rate of 1200-1600 per million, which is 2-3 times higher than the UK, Spain, and Italy (about 600 deaths per million). The rest of the U.S. is down around 200 deaths per million (although a half dozen other states are at a fatality rate around 500-600 per million).
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This is just intellectually dishonest because you compare the US mortality rate with the worst hit areas subtracted with the total mortality rate of other countries. Subtract the worst hit areas of other countries as well and the USA will start looking bad again.
Re: Baffling response to face masks (Score:2)
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I don't know if you noticed, but in the US, we've just done a massive real-world experiment in whether or not wearing masks prevents the spread of COVID-19, thanks to the BLM Riots.
We're seeing an explosion of cases thanks to them. Turns out, crowding thousands of people together to destroy property and loot businesses does, in fact, spread the disease, regardless of the masks being worn to foil facial recognition. I mean, "prevent the spread of COVID-19."
Interesting theory, but I think you have some flaws in your study. The actual looters who are wearing the masks for looting (as opposed to the protesters who are trying to protect themselves) probably only put the masks on for the illegal bit. When they hang out together beforehand they will be talking and failing to social distance and completely undermine any benefits (I'm not including escaping the police as a benefit) from their mask wearing.
Lack of recognition of impact to others (Score:5, Insightful)
The resistance is from a relatively small set of people who value their convenience more highly than the safety of others, usually because of a mistaken belief that the harm to others doesn't impact them. They don't make the connection between an increased number of cases of infection and an increased likelihood of their being infected.
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It's not a "relatively small set". I've seen virtually no one wearing masks except in places that have signs posted requiring them. And then as soon as the weather got warm, everyone just threw up their hands and said "Summer's here! Let's all go to the beach together!"
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Worry-fatigue. People can only sustain such a level of concern for so long.
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Well, no. It's from folks tired of being lied to. Tired of being told one thing, then another.
Lying has consequences. We were told not to wear masks, then to wear them, then not to wear them...we were told it's not airborne, it doesn't pass via surface contact..virtually everything we've been told thus far has been contradicted.
The communication on this rivals the PPE shortage in terms of impact of the virus. A clear, coherent message from the start would have done wonders. Now? It's too late, we pois
Re:Lack of recognition of impact to others (Score:5, Insightful)
wearing a mask is dehumanizing
So is lying in an ICU bed hooked to a ventilator.
Do you carry a legal letter with you stating you refuse to be intubated in the event of medical emergency because "it is dehumanizing"?
It is amazing to every non-Americans that Americans would rather let their countrymen die than doing something as simple as wearing a mask.
Is there the second wave after the demonstrations? (Score:2)
And I do not hear on the news about any new wave. Though it was an obvious violation of the social distancing and lock-down.
I am trying to understand why. Is it too early? Or is it inactive in warm weather of June? Or, perhaps, it is happening but the media does not report it?
Re: Is there the second wave after the demonstrati (Score:2)
Somewhat obvious? (Score:2)
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Same in my country, just on the other side of the pond.
The only reason i can think of and makes sense is the (perceived) public safety aspect. People that cover their faces are harder to identify.
A policy maker scared of social unrest - expected from severe and prolonged lock-down - would reason exactly like that. And advise against face covering thus mouth masks. If that is the real reason, it also makes sense governments do not mention it as the real reason. So they come up with some halvast 'no scientifi
Here's my Face Mask Thoughts (Score:2)
My thoughts absolutely no-one asked for but I give them to you anyway since they are based on reason and logic, which the world is in short supply of currently:
1) Wearing masks inside, is a great idea, if everyone did that for a while it would indeed help. So I do that most of the time (I skip in some situations where the risk is extremely low and not wearing masks is OK by both parties). Inside a virus can linger for a while, the air is more moved around than cleaned by any system even with filters. So
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Oops. Code filter trashed that comment. Supposed to say "launched by pick a villain". But I put "picka a villain" in angle brackets and it got censored.
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Can you please provide a citation?
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They can't quote any, they never do. As far as I know, there are no peer reviewed, published studies showing that masks are useless in preventing the spread. The problem I think I see is that no-one seems to make the distinction between:
Healthy people treating sick people need N95 masks to prevent them inhaling the virus. The truly sick are in hospital and are likely too sick to us
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This was probably a reference to a South Korea study that was retracted.
I have seen reference to a study out of University of Edinburgh that masks can result in "intense backwards and downwards leakage jets that may present major hazards", but not the study itself.
Then there is this commentary [umn.edu] by a couple professors, experts on respiratory protection.
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Thanks for providing that.
That commentary is kind of bogus though. They say they are afraid that people will relax other measures and there is no data indicating that masks are effective. Also, that is from April 1st (a lifetime in COVID world). At this point, people are relaxing distancing measures. Period. They don't want to be cooped up anymore. So the question is, should they relax with masks or without. There is no strong data but there is weak data in the sense that masks are part of the approach used
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Re: Improper Wearing of Mask? (Score:2)