How Often Is Everyone Washing Their Masks? (vice.com) 303
The CDC says to wash cloth face coverings after "each use," which leaves room for interpretation. From a report: The CDC notes that wearing a mask is a precaution to keep from spreading virus-carrying respiratory droplets to others. The idea is that if everyone wears a mask, the likelihood of the droplets getting sprayed around is much less. Each new study only provides further evidence that wearing face masks is a crucial component in slowing the spread of coronavirus. One recent paper, published by the Institute of Labor Economics in Germany, showed that masks may reduce the spread of COVID-19 by 40 percent. This is great, because wearing a mask is an easy thing to do, even if it's a little irritating. But as we accept masks as just another thing that must be worn in public, I have to wonder: What's the appropriate number to own -- and how often should they be cleaned?
Personally, I have one mask, which I bought in March from a friend on Instagram. I wash it when it "smells dirty" by swirling it around in a takeout soup container filled with hot water and laundry detergent, then hang drying it on my fire escape/backyard fence. The CDC has official guidelines on washing cloth face coverings that I'm not properly following. According to the CDC, a reusable cloth mask (versus the blue surgical masks and N95s, which are disposable and should be saved for healthcare workers) are to be washed on the warmest appropriate setting in a washing machine, or hand-washed in a solution of bleach and water. The CDC also says a mask should be "washed after each use." What constitutes a "use" isn't defined, and so how often one should perform the chore of cleaning their mask(s) is a bit of a gray area.
Personally, I have one mask, which I bought in March from a friend on Instagram. I wash it when it "smells dirty" by swirling it around in a takeout soup container filled with hot water and laundry detergent, then hang drying it on my fire escape/backyard fence. The CDC has official guidelines on washing cloth face coverings that I'm not properly following. According to the CDC, a reusable cloth mask (versus the blue surgical masks and N95s, which are disposable and should be saved for healthcare workers) are to be washed on the warmest appropriate setting in a washing machine, or hand-washed in a solution of bleach and water. The CDC also says a mask should be "washed after each use." What constitutes a "use" isn't defined, and so how often one should perform the chore of cleaning their mask(s) is a bit of a gray area.
I do it like my underwear... (Score:5, Funny)
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I would do mine more often, but the zippers and ball gag make a lot of noise in the dryer, and people in the laundromat are starting to look at me funny.
do you know what a love letter is? (Score:2)
In fact, doing so while wearing the mask is the most effective application.
Salt (Score:2)
I don't. (Score:2)
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In my family we each have a couple masks. Since it's become apparent that COVID-19 (like most other infectious organisms) doesn't survive all that long on most materials, we mostly just rotate the masks. Each one sits unused for a couple days, after which any virus which might have made it to the mask should be broken down or dead.
We do wash them occasionally - but that's basically when we happen to think about it when we are already planning to do laundry.
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You still need to clean the outside contaminants if you're actually in contact with contaminants that get on the mask. Otherwise, you're simply increasing the contaminant load with every use.
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I can't imagine this is that much of a problem, unless you're regularly hiking through Chernobyl.....?
Nothing better than impractical advice (Score:4, Insightful)
> The CDC also says a mask should be "washed after each use."
Unless you are a health care provider (who chargers others for everything), or get out of the house only once a week, the above is highly impractical.
Classical example on how to get your own advice ignored, because you strive for perfection instead of what is actually workable.
Re:Nothing better than impractical advice (Score:5, Insightful)
> The CDC also says a mask should be "washed after each use." ... or get out of the house only once a week, the above is highly impractical.
How exactly is that so? Where I live there are freely available homemade cloth masks of much better quality than the cheap cotton ones sold in 7-11s throughout Asia. I've got two. I've also got a couple of cotton bandanas as well.
I'm saving the two N95 masks for when or if I have to go to the ER.
I use the cotton masks when I go to town to pick up groceries or mail, typically about four times a week. I use the bandanas for lower-risk situations like curbside pickup, pumping gas, and if I have to be outside around others.
My rule is that a mask or bandana is good for exactly one trip to town. So I end up doing laundry about twice a week. As an added (largely psychological) measure I hang the masks in the sun to dry for at least one day, preferably two.
This whole discussion is kind of silly. Masks are cheap and easy to make -- you can make perfectly suitable ones out of a t-shirt. If you go out more often than I do there isn't any reason you couldn't have more masks.
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Assuming your mask has layers, just wash you hands if you touch the inside surface of a recently used mask, and wash the mask when it starts to smell like stale cornflakes, unless you like the smell of stale cornflakes.
Usually I put on my mask and then a pair of light work gloves after that before entering the store, being careful to touch the gloves only on the cuffs. Then I go home and leave them in the car for a few days before using them again. By then, almost all of any virus on them will have died.
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The quality of the mask is no the only problem. As I understand it, when you wash masks, the size of holes between fibers increases, so the protectiveness decreases.
IMO, rather than washing the mask, a better solution is having enough masks to use them no more than once a week or so. Any viruses that might be caught on the mask should be inactivated in a couple of days. Leaving them out in the sunlight should accelerate that process further. Thus, if you use the masks infrequently enough, you don't eve
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Also, washing masks removes layers of spit and other materials that you have previously breathed out, which help capture viruses even after the mask dries [iop.org]. In other words, until you start having trouble breathing through it, you're probably better off not washing it.
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The problem is if spit from a coronavirus infected person lands on your mask (which is better than it landing on your lip), it can start spreading through the fabric, and next time you put the mask on, you are putting on an infected mask. This is one reason the CDC recommended against masks in the first place, because they can actually increase your chances of exposure when you re-wear th
DROPlets (Score:2)
The first four letters of "droplets" is "drop". Which is what they do. Yeah, whatever, yes I know a cough or sneeze goes out very far. I never wore a mask because I didn't have a cough. If I had a cough, I WOULD STAY HOME.
Now that my state governor has required that everyone wear a mask, I do. But what's happened now is that people aren't distancing anymore. I go to the grocery store and there's people all in my face again like nothing is happening. STOP IT. The handkerchief covering your rancid dis
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Not just coughing - talking is enough to spread an airborne virus. And for some reason people do not seem to be able to go grocery shopping without bringing their significant other so they have someone to talk to.
I always likened the danger of contracting an airborne virus to the possibility of smelling someone's bad breath. When someone has bad breath, no one knows until they start talking. And then you have to be at least 2 meters away to not be overwhelmed. Realistically, you want double that for
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Here's a good read [wsj.com] on this very subject.
I feel like if I can smell someone's perfume, they're too close. And I try to stay up-wind of people. But I've actually always done that.
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. I never wore a mask because I didn't have a cough. If I had a cough, I WOULD STAY HOME.
The virus spreads by speech mate, check out this video to see how much spit comes out when you talk [youtube.com]. Coughing isn't even a major symptom of coronavirus.
Two jobs... (Score:5, Informative)
.
Even if you never wash it, it's still doing the first job with 100% effectiveness. Washing once in a while makes it do the second job better as well - that's a bonus.
(But then I live in a city where everyone cares about each other more than FreeDumb, so what do I know?)
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As others point out here, the mask protects others from you, not just you from others.
And cloth masks, anyway, are apparently much more effective at the former than the latter.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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That said, trying to stop a virus with common cloth (even two layers) is like trying to keep the mosquitoes out of your yard with a chain link fence. The mask will be a little bit effective.
In this case the point is to keep the mosquitoes in your yard, to prevent your infection from reaching others. And in that role a common cloth mask actually does prove to be quite effective.
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That said, trying to stop a virus with common cloth (even two layers) is like trying to keep the mosquitoes out of your yard with a chain link fence.
If all the mosquitoes are cement glued to a basket ball, that chain link fence will work just fine.
Alternate analogy, they are all 4 foot tall Australian mosquitoes, except unlike the ones in real life, these haven't yet figured out how to pick the lock on the gate :P
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That said, trying to stop a virus with common cloth (even two layers) is like trying to keep the mosquitoes out of your yard with a chain link fence
If it's diffuse in the air, the virus is small enough to get through even N95 masks. But the virus is mostly transmitted through droplets that can be stopped by common cloth masks.
Daily (Score:2)
Just make sure you don't put it back on inside out after you take it off for a bit.
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maybe overkill (Score:3)
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That's not overkill. You're doing all the right things. The thing about cloth masks is that they largely protect out, but also somewhat protect in. So if everyone wears them, then everyone is well protected. If only you are wearing one, you aren't very well protected, although it's better than nothing.
The reason to wash the mask is because there might be virus on it from breathing in, and you don't want to handle that. So when you take it off, put on a new one, and treat the old one as infectious: don't sto
Respirator (Score:2)
As I recall, 3M says that the P100 filters in my 6000-series respirator should be changed every month, or every 40 hours, or when breathing becomes harder due to clogging, whichever comes first. I may stretch that out to two months over the summer, since I only expect to use the respirator about three to four hours a week (grocery shopping and church). I should (and maybe actually do) wash/sanitize hands after every time I touch the filters.
Re:Respirator (Score:5, Informative)
And you're wearing the wrong thing, since the intention of a mask is to protect others from droplets if you're infected. Your 6000-series has outflow valve that bypasses filters and so spews droplets at everyone. It's why those are NOT approved for medical use. Get a plain ol' cloth mask and do everyone around you a favor.
10 Masks btwn Wife and I (Score:2)
First, we are in a low-infection area of California. We're both telecommuting 100%. The one recreational outing I've had was to get a coffee with an immediate neighbor last Monday.
We have 10 multi-layer cloth masks. On the rare occasion that we go out (non-delivery shopping, take-out meal), we wear the masks. When we get home, we throw them in the laundry. At no point have all our masks been in the laundry because we don't go out that frequently.
We don't wear them while running (exercise), but we carry them
Why are you washing it? (Score:2)
Seriously,
The fabric masks are not blocking the virus but water droplets that carry the virus Now I didn't consider that the water droplets may dry out and virus may then be propelled outward but if you're infected and not showing symptoms then you're likely expelling them anyway. If you aren't actually infected then there is nothing really being gained by washing it more often.
The biggest risk I think would be if you share the mask, otherwise wash when it's dirty.... is my take.
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Exactly. We've been told that there isn't a trace of the virus left on virtually any type of surface after just a few days and we know as well that you need to cross some threshold of viral particles in your system before you'll actually become infected (i.e. touching a contaminated surface and then putting your hand in your mouth does not guarantee you'll get infected, though obviously you shouldn't be playing with fire like that).
If we look at it from the angle of not wanting to get sick, it's unlikely th
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I think maybe if there is virus from outside *on* the mask that hasn't made it to you yet?
I wash mine when it starts to smell bad, a week or two depending on what's happening (mostly use it to go inside restaurants and order).
Of course, we already had covid, confirmed at the time as well as now with antibody tests. We didn't care in the first place before we had it, and we really only wear masks out of solidarity to make other people feel better. But at this point I mostly forget there is even a p
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Soap is incredibly good at killing the virus because the surface of the virus is a lipid layer, and soaps cut through grease.
Leave it on dashboard in the sun (Score:4, Interesting)
(*) Most are, they are little different than bandanas, they catch the heavy stuff during a cough, aside from that placebos to keep people calm. The faux surgical blues out of china are mostly virtual signaling too.
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Bandanas are fairly useless because the weave is so loose. Masks aren't virtue signaling—they prevent your outbreath from carrying droplets. You are signaling virtue in the sense that people can see that you are protecting them, and this will tend to make them think you aren't a complete asshole, which is always good. But you're signaling virtue because your action is virtuous—wearing a mask is not performative virtue signaling.
The mask doesn't really protect you much at all, although it's bette
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Bandanas are fairly useless because the weave is so loose.
So is the weave in many *cloth* masks. Cloth masks are recommended by the CDC. They even specifically mention using cloth from bandannas, scarves, etc for those who want to make homemade masks.
Masks aren't virtue signaling—they prevent your outbreath from carrying droplets.
And bandannas perform that function as well. Not as well as a cloth facemark that "seals" better, which itself is very different and less effective than an actual surgical or N95 mask. The point being is the bandannas are *not* that different from other *cloth* masks people are making at home or buying online. I was d
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if you want to UV sterilize naturally, the masks have to be hit by direct sunlight. No glass.
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My cloth virtue signaling masks(*) came in a 3 pack. So I can just leave one or two on the car dashboard in the sunlight for sterilization.
Yep, summer in the South here. I let my mask bake on the dashboard of my truck. Should get hot enough to kill off any little baddies.
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That's not really true. A bandana is a single layer of fabric with a loose weave, which does very little. The more layers of fabric and the finer the weave, the more likely that tiny droplets will hit fibers and stick, rather than pass straight through.
To give an analogy, hold up your hand at arm's
Rarely (Score:2)
I only use my mask when going out shopping, which is pretty much the only time I go out around a lot of other people. When not in use I leave it on the dashboard of my car to bake in the sun. From what I've read it's a pretty effective method of disinfecting something.
Some analysis (Score:2)
I didn't find a study for cotton but in terms of intermolecular forces it is similar to cardboard (fibers of cellulose) which here [nih.gov] is described as hosting intact virus particles for ~24 hours. (Personally somewhat skeptical that the virus is still going to be transmitted in an infectious load well before that.)
You only need ~60C temp to very effectively sterilize (humidity also helps) so I usually just steam my masks under an iron and call it good.
But if you are going out "frequently" the sterilization ma
Are millennials really this stupid? (Score:2)
Does nobody launder clothing? (Score:2)
We just toss in the worn ones in the laundry and use the second set that day, is this really a thing?
N95 (Score:2)
What constitutes a "use" isn't defined (Score:2)
Pretty easy - wash with my hands when I get home (Score:2)
I wash a mask I've been using every time I get home and wash my hands - washing both my hands and the mask at the same time. Then I just hang it up to dry (I have fabric masks).
One of the most effective virus killers is soap and water, so the mask is well cleaned this way, plus the drying time ensures I won't wear it for a while after so it gets further isolation time.
Mostly I don't go out of the house more than once a day, but I have a few masks in case I need to go out again (and I keep one in the car in
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They are absolutely better than nothing. *ESPECIALLY* when everyone cooperates. The people who aren't playing nice are the ones that make the actual mask wearing less effective.
It would be interesting if the net-effect of masks on health is negative
It sure would be interesting because it would contradict best practices in a medical setting that has been around for over 100 years.
Re:Gross... (Score:5, Insightful)
Homemade masks actually offer *ZERO* provable protection against getting this kind of virus. Their net effect might even be negative in some circumstances because they may lull a person into a false sense of security, and may put themselves at a greater risk. Properly made medical masks offer protection against getting the virus, but only when properly utilized. The likelihood of getting sick from a droplet-bound illness when one is never very near anyone who is sick is small enough that there is no provable benefit to wearing any kind of mask to avoid getting the disease while practicing physical distancing. Medical professionals, who must work closely with sick people, do definitely benefit from the added protection that a properly worn medical mask gives.
For this kind of virus, any kind of mask will, in fact, help stop you from transmitting the virus, as its primary vector of transmission is from water droplets that escape your mouth when coughing, sneezing, talking, etc. While the virus is of course much smaller than the holes in non-medical masks, many of the water droplets to which it is bound are not, and a homemade mask still makes a very effective (but not foolproof) barrier. Some tiny droplets may still get through, especially during a sneeze or cough where a large amount of droplets are being propelled at velocity, but they get slowed down by the mask and should drop to the ground shortly thereafter.
It is hardly unusual for people to try and minimize their contact with others when they actually feel sick, but COVID19 is atypical in that it has an abnormally long incubation period for a coronavirus, and a person can easily be carrying it, and transmit it to others without ever once realizing they were sick. This means that the normal social cues to otherwise try and minimize the likelihood of spreading the disease may not be present, and why the recommendation to wear a mask even if you believe you are not sick is a good one based on what we know today.
Re:Gross... (Score:5, Informative)
The false sense of security thing is BS. There's absolutely no evidence for that, and yet people keep saying it like it's actually true.
Papers are showing the OPPOSITE. Wearing a mask INCREASES physical distancing.
https://twitter.com/DiseaseEco... [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/JuliaLMarc... [twitter.com]
"It's pretty clear that masks don't *decrease* social distancing, despite concerns about a "false sense of security" leading to reckless behavior.
Risk compensation arguments are generally baseless and interfere with good public health. https://www.theatlantic.com/id... [theatlantic.com]"
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/... [twitter.com]
There's evidence here that even *badly worn* masks increase physical distancing behaviour.
https://twitter.com/Babak_Javi... [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/zeynep/sta... [twitter.com]
Study after study, expert after expert: there's zero evidence whatsoever about this 'false sense of security' thing.
Yeah, I know, people are shit at wearing masks and understanding how to don and doff them, but the value of the mask is in limiting the spread from yourself to others, and in that instance, they perform perfectly well. Indeed, "Face Masks May Be The Key Determinant Of The Covid-19 Curve, Study Suggests".
https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
Once people start wearing masks, infection rates drop off.
If you have any evidence at all *from a study* that masks increase any risk at all, please post it. To date, I've seen zero. (Doctors at the CDC or WHO making baseless claims also don't count—they're making meritless assumptions as well.)
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They keep saying it because they're aliterate; they know how to read, but they only are actually willing to read for social purposes. If you present them with a page full of information, they will not read it. They might pass their eyes slowly over it, unfocused, and then tell you that they read it; but now ask them a few questions about what it said.
This has become over 50% of the public. They only read words they think tell them who concluded what, felt what, or who was declared to be in the out-group. Ev
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Ah yes, but in medical practices, masks are disposed of and not re-used. Unsure if you're intentionally missing the point or unintentionally being misleading.
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Up til recently, sure; it was easy to get new ones. More recently, reuse is more of a thing [ohio.gov]. And that's not even counting efforts to figure out how to resterilize a mask [imcclinics.com].
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The mask is primarily working to protect others from you, so if an infected person wears a mask the spread drops significantly.
But you don't always know if you have been infected or not, so whenever you are in areas where you meet people, especially indoors - wear a mask.
Re:Gross... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cut the bullshit. If masks weren't effective surgeons wouldn't wear them when they open you up. The article literally said:
One recent paper, published by the Institute of Labor Economics in Germany, showed that masks may reduce the spread of COVID-19 by 40 percent.
Apparently in your world, a 40 percent reduction isn't terribly effective.
if the net-effect of masks on health is negative because of using masks in place of other more effective measures
What other "effective" measures? Aside from washing your hands, what else? You think washing your hands frequently will somehow prevent your spittle from flying through the air onto the person you're talking to? Or landing on someone's food or drink?
Keep the trolling.
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17.4%, while that fell to 3.1%
so you're 5x more likely to spread without a mask. 3% is still high, but to put it another way, you can have 5x as many social interactions at the same risk level if everyone wears a mask. I like that.
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And don't do choir singing.
Re:Gross... (Score:4, Interesting)
Masks don't need to be terribly effective. They just need to significantly help, and they do.
Using masks don't replace other more effective precautions and hygiene. It complements it.
There's no silver bullet for such complicated problem like a pandemic. It always will be a matter of using a set of many solutions (terribly effective or not) working together.
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They are two men.
Scenario one Both are not wearing pants, One guy pees the other guy gets wet.
Scenario two. One guy is wearing pants, the other guy pees on him. He gets wet, but not as wet.
Scenario three. One guy is not wearing part, the other guy who is peeing is wearing pant, he gets wet, the other guys doesn't however if they get too close he could get wet.
Scenario four. Both are wearing pants. The guy who pees his pants dosn't hit the other guy and if they do touch, then the other guys pants will pr
Re:Gross... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a gross over-simplification.
Here's an easier one. Go out on a really cold day. Look at the clouds your breathing and talking makes. Bonus points if you expend some energy to make you breathe harder. These are water droplets you are expelling, all the time. They are there on warm days too, you just can't see them. Whatever those droplets hit is them contaminated.
Put on a scarf or balaclava. Repeat the steps above and note the much shorter range of the droplets you exhaling. Also note your face covering getting soaked with the moisture you are no longer spewing into the environment. This should make the need for washing more obvious as well.
Of course, don't be fondling your wet face covering and touching everything in sight, but if you are the sort of person who does that no infection control is likely to work with you.
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Re:Gross... (Score:5, Informative)
This information is outdated and dangerous.
A massive, well structured peer reviewed study by the royal society found
https://royalsocietypublishing... [royalsocie...ishing.org]
Wearing a mask reduces your personal risk of infection from 17% to 3% at 1 meter (that's an 80% reduction)
Wearing a mask reduces others risk of infection as well.
If both are wearing a mask all the time, it's enough to bring R0 below 0. And one feature of numerous countries where covid19 has been controlled (Taiwan, Korea, Japan ,Myamar, New Zealand, Viet nam, Thailand, China) Mask wearing was required and supported by the populace. It was also a key step to regaining control in Italy.
If both only wear a mask when they think they have become infected it lowers the effective R0 from about 4.5 to between 1 and 2.
Further... wearing eye protection or face protection reduces the risk of infection further.
A similar U.S. (or possibly the same) study has also been published showing the same thing in PNAS: The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.
When mask-wearing went into effect in New York, the daily new infection rate fell by about 3% per day, researchers said. In the rest of the country, daily new infections continued to increase.
Mask wearing is also not dangerous. That's been shown to be quackary based on actual reports of slightly lower oxygen levels after extremely long surgeries. Only people with low oxygenation due to other conditions such as emphysema could legitimately have concerns here. Anyone else is being a hypocondriac. Again- Over a *BILLION* people wear masks daily (and have for a couple decades) without a problem. So stop whining about masks. I wear mine in 95 degree weather. It's not a big deal.
And another study showed the same thing back on June 3.
https://www.theweek.com/speedr... [theweek.com]
https://time.com/5846288/socia... [time.com]
Wearing masks ends the plague- saves lives- protects your and others health- and puts us where we can reopen the economy in a way that people will actually participate.
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Cloth masks are *mainly* to prevent spread *from* the person wearing the mask. Any protection they offer the wearer from others is just icing on the cake. The "effectiveness" of cloth masks should be expressed as the former number, not the latter. Quibbling over what the latter number is madness unless you're talking about an n95 or some other equipment which is actually designed to protect the user form the environment.
This has been made abundantly clear over and over again, if you are listening to the
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Are you talking about the study in the OP? it says masks ( unqualifed) reduced the spread withing the population over time by 40% ( possibly , not accounting for factors like weather, genetics , randomness etc.) That was supposedly the cumulative effect of your personal chances being changed by 2.3 to 9%.
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That seems to be the embodiment of what's wrong with our culture. The main point is to not spread it to people who are vulnerable, even if it doesn't kill/hurt the wearer. A mask is such a minor inconvenience compared to death and disability, and yet so many people aren't willing to do it. If we can get the spread down below 1, everyone benefits. And the longer it festers in the population, the more chance it affects somebody who it does kill/hurt. Furthermore, we keep continue rolling the dice to see
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Citation will be needed (This will need to be recent, and not from some Right Leaning news groups). Working in a hospital myself, I am getting the message masking even if it isn't N95 or properly fitting is doing the most out of any other activity to keep the curve down.
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Since the purpose of the mask is to protect others from yourself, in case you're sick, it really doesn't matter if it gets dirty or that you contaminate yourself with it. The only risk is touching the mask and spreading it to surfaces - but it doesn't seem to be spreading very well via surfaces anyway.
As extremely imperfect as it is, just covering the nose and mouth and having a high percentage of people doing it is plenty to slow down or stop this thing. We don't need anything close to perfection for it
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It's not about being a "paranoid bedwetter snowflake", but about preventing yourself from unknowingly transmitting COVID-19 to other people. I'm young and healthy enough not to worry about catching it, but I still wear a mask because a) the science says there's a possibility I could have it and be contagious without knowing, and b) I'm not an asshole. The attitude of "I'm not a snowflake" is a large part of why the USA still has a massive infection rate while countries like New Zealand have basically eradic
Re:Never. I don't have one. (Score:4, Insightful)
The data don't have to be perfect. Let's say there was only a 1-in-3 chance that universal mask wearing would significantly reduce the infection rate across society. Would I be willing to put up with minor inconvenience, to give you--or, if you're young and think that you're immortal, your grandparents--a lower chance of dying a horrible death? Of course.
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I see people driving around in their cars alone, windows up, wearing a mask.
The family next door all wear masks when they go out into their yard - with nobody else around. I have to wonder if they wear them inside, too.
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Sometimes it's easier to just wear it than to think about whether this or that situation requires it. I wear one whenever I go outside (I need it in the elevator anyway to avoid remnants from the last rider - or leaving any from me). I will take it off if I pick a place outside to sit for a while. But when walking around, it's easier to just wear it than to take it on and off. The people walking around with their masks below their chins mystify me. Okay, maybe it's a bit less uncomfortable, but then to
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I guess I live in a different environment. Houses are at least 100 yards apart. I leave my property a couple times a week, tops. 48,000 residents in the county (which is larger than all of New Jersey), 328 positive cases, 5 deaths (all people over 80). So it doesn't look as bad here.
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I see people driving around in their cars alone, windows up, wearing a mask.
People driving alone wearing masks might just be Uber or Lyft drivers, between fares.
From my work, where I wear a surgical mask frequently for many hours, I'm used to wearing them. Really, really used to wearing them. So often I will reflexively put one on when I'm driving somewhere I need it, and leave it on until I get home. No big deal. Also, as a contributing factor, have you ever been driving behind someone smoking and been able to smell it? You are breathing in what they breathed out, which, if
Re:Never. I don't have one. (Score:5, Funny)
Not being a paranoid bedwetter snowflake I don't wear one.
That is right! We all know the real threat is some illegal alien or inner-city punk breaking into my house to kill me, rape my TV and steal my women!
So, I have a 9mm and an AR-14,15 AND 16 with 30 30 round banana clips! I wear cammo so I look really tuff and makko! And recite the Second Amendment as a prayer every morning, noon and night!
But we all know, as soon as a Democrat gets into office, he is gonna confiscate all our guns like Obama did!
I just hope to Jesus and God that if Trump loses, he ignores the election results for the good of America! Because I believe in the Constitution and God forbid we get a Democrat in office. That is when Trump needs to become President for life, disband Congress and fire all of SCOTUS for sticking up for the gays! We must do that to save the Constitution and this country!
Praise Jesus!
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*LOL* ... that is really funny... unfortunately i resemble that remark, and know many people who do so more then me ! :) . As a simple matter of fact, anyone who doesn't believe in God has already rejected the american experiment based on 'inalienable' rights in a constitution, because without God all rights can be nothing more the changeable human constructs.
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With God, all rights are nothing more than changeable human constructs, for example, see slavery in the USA. Funny how what God thinks changes according to the whims of the humans in power.
Tell me, bro, do you wear clothing made from more than one material? Oh, so you're saying that God changed his mind on that one? Shellfish too? Weird, sounds a lot like God changes his mind whenever he wants to.
Good thing we have the rainbow as a symbol that God will never drown almost all of us again, right?
Re:Never. I don't have one. (Score:5, Informative)
*LOL* ... that is really funny... unfortunately i resemble that remark, and know many people who do so more then me ! :) . As a simple matter of fact, anyone who doesn't believe in God has already rejected the american experiment based on 'inalienable' rights in a constitution, because without God all rights can be nothing more the changeable human constructs.
Interesting. For a Secular Humanist, one has inalienable rights for being human and alive. Just being human means you get those rights.
And what is wonderful about Secular Humanists, if you belong to the "wrong" religion, you still have those rights.
People of Faith are under this delusion that they have the moral high ground when in fact, they have the low ground. First, being moral for fear of God? That is a child's reasoning.
Second, for people who do not believe the same way, they have to be changed, marginalized, or even killed? Frankly, in this country the Evangelical Christians are not much better than the Taliban. They are just restricted by laws preventing them from committing the violence that the Taliban does.
Third, Secular Humanists have a superior morality. It is based on reason. Basing ones values on fear or on a book of myths like the Bible screams of irrationality. And the Bible is nothing but contradictions and garbage. A book retelling the stories of ancient illiterate goat herders with all their hangups is hardly something to use as a moral guide. Woman were second class citizens at best.
And after having read the Bible, I came to the conclusion that the God character (Yahweh was the Hebrew War god) is the Evil one. Satan wanted to use reason - reason is Evil among religions. And let us also see that all the evil in the Bible committed by Satan was at Gods direction.
God is evil.
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On what grounds does being human grant you 'rights'? The only logical grounds is that you are an image of God. Those are the grounds the founders the country used. If there are others , I'd love to hear them. Either 'rights' are a man made construct without any more meaning then the alphabet just as changeable over time then the meaning of words, or they exist on a metaphysical level which is the only way the can be inalienable. IF there is no God, man and his life has no more meaning or rights than t
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If there are others , I'd love to hear them.
No, you do not; as I have expressed them and you have ignored them.
On what grounds does being human grant you 'rights'?
I see. So, what is your opinion on abortion? (Hypocrisy is the MO of religion. )
I find the rest of your post on par with religious nuttery Evangelical Christian stupidity. I will not play the game of citing every sentence and rebuking it because it is a waste of my time and it is so goddamn stupid
But - as a Secular Humanist, you have rights - regardless that you are a delusional religious nutter who believes in a false god and all of its
Re:Never. I don't have one. (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the most disappointing things about this entire crisis has been the degree to which basic medical decisions have been politicized. Comments like yours are a good example of the extreme partisanship and polarization we have today. Earlier we had whether hydroxychloroquine worked became a political football, with one group deciding it must definitely not, and another deciding it must definitely help, all before strong evidence was in. Unfortunately, despite the strong evidence that masks help https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200612172200.htm [sciencedaily.com] https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/10/2009637117 [pnas.org] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext#%20 [thelancet.com], one political group has decided that wearing masks must be a symbol of the hated Other Tribe.
Early in this crisis, the difference between self-identified Republicans and self-identified Democrats on most COVID issues was small https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-political-is-the-coronavirus-pandemic-already/ [fivethirtyeight.com], but the mask matter seems to be part of a growing divide https://www.vox.com/2020/5/13/21257181/coronavirus-masks-trump-republicans-culture-war [vox.com]. And that's occurring even as some right-leaning columnists like Megan McArdle https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-conservatives-want-a-less-intrusive-government-they-should-wear-masks/2020/05/27/50908ed8-9f90-11ea-b5c9-570a91917d8d_story.html [washingtonpost.com] are trying to convince fellow conservatives that wearing masks makes sense in a conservative framework. A majority of both self-identified Republicans and self-identified Democrats seem to support mask wearing https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/04/23/republicans-and-democrats-wear-masks [yougov.com], although the number of Republicans seems to be dropping. Trump's refusal to wear a mask in any public context has really not helped matters.
All of that said, failure to wear masks is not exclusively to the Republican leadership. Pictures from the recent Pride events in Brooklyn show most people not wearing masks and presumably that's a group that leans left, and is particularly striking given how hard hit New York as a whole has been hit. It seems at this point that at least most of the BLM protesters are wearing masks, but given how much singing and chanting they are doing, that's likely not going to be sufficient to protect them.
The next few weeks are going to probably be very bad.
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thanks for the studies. I will actually read these, as I hope you did and get back to you on weather or not they change my mind. Have your read them? Care to save me some trouble. Summarize their actual findings percentages +/- of transmission when studied under controlled conditions? I try to stay well informed on these things and the CDC has not listed any studies on their home page that actually pertain to the effectiveness of wearing masks.
Are ANY of these studies done in a lab? They look like they a
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Funny how it sounds like your gut has already told your mind what it will find in those studies. Wave those hands harder, maybe you will be able to keep your own personal version of "the truth" intact.
But I'm sure that's not based on your political leanings. Oh, no. A smart independent person like yourself certainly thinks for themselves rather than parroting back the shibboleths of their tribe.
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Are ANY of these studies done in a lab? They look like they are all based on statistics of large populations, so the genetics of the population alone could be a huge factor that throws them off. Too many uncontrolled variables. Perhaps after 100 or so more of these studies there would be enough evidence to say you had a conclusion, but right now , the evidence is at best preliminary.
It is true that these studies are largely done outside lab environments and look mostly at population levels. Unfortunately, there are serious ethical considerations for studies involving actually comparing masks to no masks in randomized or lab environments. Most such studies have looked at droplet transmission itself and found that cloth masks do substantially block droplets. See for one recent example https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.19.20071779v1.full.pdf [medrxiv.org]. But insisting on "100 or so mo
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You remind me of Africans who attacked medics and burnt down clinics during their ebola outbreak. The true free thinkers of our world - the W.H.O. can't tell you what to do!
"Selfish" isn't quite the right word for it.
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By going against what has become common practice you kinda ARE making yourself a special little snowflake.
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And yet the who recently said based on studies that asymptomatic transmission was rare or even very rare. This all made sense months ago, not it is mostly silly.
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Except they meant "asymptomatic" as people who would never go on to develop symptoms rather than "presymptomatic." You have no way of knowing which you are until you get symptoms. If you never get symptoms, you can't be too sure about anything.
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yes and studies done in Iceland and various other places indicate that is between 10 and 50% of all people who contract the virus are asymptomatic. Iceland is the only country that has really randomly tested people and found 50% of people who tested positive didn't know they had the virus. ( no data on how many figured it out or died from it later so far as I know.)
I'm all for keeping people who are high risk home if we can, and social distancing for the purpose of keeping others healthy is a good thing, b
Re: Never. I don't have one. (Score:2)
Tell that's the reason to all the dumbasses who wear them. They wont believe you.
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What rubbish. There are plenty of studies you are just ignoring them because you find them uncomfortable. And it's not about your chances of dying it's about your chances of killing someone who is over age 65 if you are walking around infected.
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I hate mask.. I think they are more about fear and "feeling" safe then science, especially cloth masks. I'm open to studies if there are any. The CDC lists none.
Fine. Here you go: a quick summary of research to date [thelancet.com]. Also, this [royalsocie...ishing.org].
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Thanks, a quote ( emphasis added is mine).
"Our search identified 172 observational studies across 16 countries and six continents, with NO RANDOMISED CONTROLLED TRIALS and 44 relevant comparative studies in health-care and non-health-care settings (n=25697 patients). "
>>>> translation THE PROBLEM HASN'T BEEN STUDIED VERY WELL.
". Face mask use COULD result in a large reduction in risk of infection (n=2647; aOR 015, 95% CI 007 to 034, RD 143%, 159 to 107;LOW CERTAINTY), with stronger associations
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Actually, that stuff on the inside of your mask makes it more effective at stopping viruses [iop.org].
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This wasn't a poll, but I get your idea.
Having a mask outdoors isn't making much difference, but whenever I go for shopping I have two precautions - shop early in the morning when there are few people out shopping and have a mask. I try to shop food 1 or 2 times per week, no more. And sometimes I need some other stuff that I then plan to purchase and make a quick raid through that shop to get what I need with mask on.
Also realize that a mask protects others from you more than you from others.