Largest Study of Its Kind Finds Face Masks Reduce COVID-19 (berkeley.edu) 232
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Berkeley News: Wearing face masks, particularly surgical masks, is truly effective in reducing the spread of COVID-19 in community settings, finds a new study led by researchers from Yale University, Stanford Medical School, the University of California, Berkeley, and the nonprofit Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). The study, which was carried out among more than 340,000 adults living in 600 rural communities in Bangladesh, is the first randomized trial to examine the effectiveness of face masks at reducing COVID-19 in a real-world setting, where mask use may be imperfect and inconsistent.
The results show that increased mask-wearing -- the result of a community-level mask distribution and in-person promotion campaign -- led to a significant reduction in the percentage of people with COVID-19, based on symptom reporting and SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing. The team tested both cloth and surgical masks and found especially strong evidence that surgical masks are effective in preventing COVID-19. In the study, surgical masks prevented one in three symptomatic infections among community members 60 years and older. The findings come at a crucial time in the U.S., when many in-person events have resumed and children -- including those who are under 12 and do not yet qualify for vaccination -- are returning to in-person school. The full press release and study can be found at their respective links.
The results show that increased mask-wearing -- the result of a community-level mask distribution and in-person promotion campaign -- led to a significant reduction in the percentage of people with COVID-19, based on symptom reporting and SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing. The team tested both cloth and surgical masks and found especially strong evidence that surgical masks are effective in preventing COVID-19. In the study, surgical masks prevented one in three symptomatic infections among community members 60 years and older. The findings come at a crucial time in the U.S., when many in-person events have resumed and children -- including those who are under 12 and do not yet qualify for vaccination -- are returning to in-person school. The full press release and study can be found at their respective links.
If worn properly (Score:5, Insightful)
The big problem I keep seeing is the morons who wear a mask under their nose. It's difficult to get everybody to wear a mask, and everybody has to wear one for them to be effective. Their likely more effective at trapping viruses going out than coming in, so the people with the mask not covering their noses are likely causing issues even if everybody else is wearing one properly.
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Concurrence and wishing I could figure out how to encourage the discussion along this productive line, but it seems too intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. It's much easier for the mask to prevent you from transmitting Covid-19 than it is for the mask to prevent some idiot from giving it to you through the mask (especially if you aren't careful when you take it off).
Having said that, where are the transparent masks? Not the useless plastic shield things (that the capsids can go around), but a p
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Having said that, where are the transparent masks?
Scotty hasn't given us the formula for those yet ...
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The lens on my phone is made of transparent aluminum... Well, aluminum oxide, technically.
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The joke was indeed poking fun at the fact that "transparent aluminum" already existed at the time of that film.
Way to kill it though.
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Concurrence and wishing I could figure out how to encourage the discussion along this productive line, but it seems too intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. It's much easier for the mask to prevent you from transmitting Covid-19 than it is for the mask to prevent some idiot from giving it to you through the mask (especially if you aren't careful when you take it off).
Having said that, where are the transparent masks? Not the useless plastic shield things (that the capsids can go around), but a porous transparent mask. The design of the basic face mask is fine, but I want one made from porous transparent plastic, or some other fiber that has been processed to make it transparent. Maybe a little outline around the edge so people can easily see that I'm wearing a mask, but still showing my face as usual.
Here you go:
https://www.theclearmask.com/p... [theclearmask.com]
Not exactly what you're asking for since the plastic isn't porous (and I'm not sure you could build an N95 rated filtering medium), but you can clearly see your face through the mask, and it's FDA approved.
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Quite aware of those kinds of masks. Well, actually there are at least four flavors, but none of them are the mask I seek. That particular one has to circulate the air (with capsids) around the sides so you don't suffocate. There are also drop down visors, pop up visors, and visors stuck in the middle (but with insufficient surface unless the fabric is too porous).
But yes, I acknowledge that it would quite difficult to make clear plastic with N95 pores. I'd settle for something close to multi-layer cotton.
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Speaking of useless face shields... The most amusing ineffective "mask" I ever saw was at a restaurant in a red county a few weeks ago. All the waitresses were wearing these bizarre half-face shields that only covered their mouths. They might have been upside-down eye shields, but I'm, not sure. Never seen something like that before or since. I'm not even sure how I managed to not burst out laughing at the site of those ridiculous things. I think the only thing they might have protected anyone from woul
Re: If worn properly (Score:2)
Ya I saw those types too, aliexpress is selling them briskly, specifically marketed for restaurant employees for some reason.
Probably so they can't spit in the food any more I guess.
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Speaking of useless face shields... The most amusing ineffective "mask" I ever saw was at a restaurant in a red county a few weeks ago. All the waitresses were wearing these bizarre half-face shields that only covered their mouths. They might have been upside-down eye shields, but I'm, not sure. Never seen something like that before or since. I'm not even sure how I managed to not burst out laughing at the site of those ridiculous things. I think the only thing they might have protected anyone from would be those waitresses intentionally trying to spit on someone or something.
Wh/o knows, and ii Red America - who cares? Seriously? If you are in a red state, and not insane - you wear your mask, you get your vaccines, and your booster shots> and if they choose to die - it is their choice.
If the ivermectin crowd chooses to deworm themselves, and compare mask mandates to the holocaust https://www.latimes.com/busine... [latimes.com] and anti-vaxxing is now their official policy, to the point of attempts to defund places that are attempting to limit deaths - hey - it's what they are trying to
Re: If worn properly (Score:2, Troll)
Re: If worn properly (Score:2)
But transparent window masks are only useful if others wear them - so that OP can make out what they are saying.
Not of much use for him to wear them coz mostly the rest of us dont need lip reading cues.
Or even if we do, we are least interested in hearing what others have to say :) so it's a blessing in disguise
In fact I never read any replies to my comments on any social media, that would defeat the whole USP of social media.
Shall I get off your lawn now ?
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The big problem I keep seeing is the morons who wear a mask under their nose. It's difficult to get everybody to wear a mask, and everybody has to wear one for them to be effective. Their likely more effective at trapping viruses going out than coming in, so the people with the mask not covering their noses are likely causing issues even if everybody else is wearing one properly.
You may be setting the bar too high. If we can coach the misguided masses into wearing the masks, even improperly, perhaps there's hope we can show that the 85-88% rate of unvaccinated hospitalized covid patients means the maths support immunization.
But I doubt it, since common sense is disturbingly uncommon.
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It's difficult to get everybody to wear a mask
Pop rivets?
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"even improperly"
A less than perfect fit around the edges is still a partially effective masking effort. A completely uncovered nose is missing the entire fucking point.
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What about the particles going into your nose? For one thing.
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This plus the fact that the louder you talk the more particles you're emitting and so wearing a mask over your mouth is still beneficial.
2m distance is far more effective though.
I think the virus R-0 factors have passed some kind of threshold in London, mask wearing is very willy nilly, employees of most businesses don't seem to be wearing masks. I'm lucky I got
Re: If worn properly (Score:2)
Ya conclusively airborne, quite a few good studies on Lancet.
Not much that can be done though for airborne viruses in gen pop.
Except wearing one of those full bubble head masks on indiegogo / kickstarter if they get delivered. before zeta variant.
Or the aliexpress masks with rechargeable air pumps clipped to your belt. Those seemed good. Have a whole mic-ampli-speaker circuit too for carrying your voice out.
By the time I make up my mind which high tech mask to buy the bloody wave goes away, only to return i
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I haven't read the study in full (Score:2)
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I was at the hospital a few months ago and the optometry consultant, with his PhD, had his mask under his nose the whole time.
He was an older guy, maybe late 50s, so more at risk than I was. Apparently not a complete moron either since he managed to get qualified as and promoted to senior doctor.
The study shows that 50% is half of 100% (Score:5, Informative)
The study in this case is actual covid cases, with real people, wearing masks the way people actually wear them. It's not a lab experiment.
The study shows what would be common sense if nobody had politicized it -
While using N95 masks properly provides nearly 100% protection, doing a half-ass job only provides half the protection.
Half of 100% protection is 50% - cutting COVID cases in half.
Cloth masks are LESS effective than N95 masks.
Less doesn't mean zero. As demonstrated by this study, for anyone who forgot what "less' means.
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It's much worse than 50%, though. According to TFS, the efficiency of cloth masks was measured at 37%, compared to surgical at 95%.
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But N95 is not a 'surgical mask'
not the 'surgical mask' the general public wears
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Cloth masks are LESS effective than N95 masks.
Yes! A reasonable mask statement! I note one thing: valve-less N95s.
There are cloth masks available that have a HEPA filter sewn into the mask. HEPA filters are what are used in the hospital rooms of transplant patients – people with zero immune systems – to prevent any infections. These "cloth w/HEPA" masks are much better in protection level than regular cloth, as HEPA filters have very tiny holes to catch aerosols and tiny particles.
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Cloth masks are LESS effective than N95 masks.
Less doesn't mean zero. As demonstrated by this study, for anyone who forgot what "less' means.
A big fat ZERO *IS* the conclusion of this study WRT cloth masks.
"We find clear evidence that surgical masks lead to a relative reduction in symptomatic seroprevalence of 11.2%" ... "For cloth masks, we find an imprecise zero"
Re:The study shows that 50% is half of 100% (Score:5, Insightful)
No sir, the study did NOT count virus particles, droplets of phlegm, or anything of the kind you might imagine. The study counted covid cases.
Promoting mask use = fewer covid cases. That's what the study measured.
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> Would they do scientific studies and conclude that "yes, crosses do stop the spread of covid"?
If you don't care for science, you can just look for yourself, with your own eyes.
After you (or someone else) has worn a white mask for a couple hours, take a look at the inside. That's yellowish brown stuff you can is dried up mucus and saliva droplets. You can see it for yourself.
Each of these droplets was around 10-60um before drying up and would carry around 10000 or so copies of the virus.
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unfortunately this study proves you're wrong
Washable bandanna (Score:2)
I've been wearing bandannas for many years in dusty environments, with the low-hanging corner tucked under the chin and up into one of the sides near the ear to form a breathing mask. Am I doing it wrong during the pandemic?
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Largely depends on the weave and how damp it gets while you're wearing it. You may not be transmitting any capsids--but your protection against incoming is almost surely weaker.
But I should have mentioned (in the earlier comment) that it would be nice if the transparent mask I am looking for was also washable. ("These bandannas are not the masks you are looking for.")
The way it was put to me is this (Score:3)
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There's a typo, but I get your drift.
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Common masks, tested (including bandanna):
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/08... [cnn.com]
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Michael Osterholm the Director for Infectious Disease, Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota confirmed people are being given a false sense of security with these cloth and surgeons masks. 15 minutes before contracting Covid 19 in a room wearing cloth/surgeons mask vs 25 hours for an N95 mask.
Versus how many seconds without a mask? Fifteen minutes is a long time. That's ten times longer than you spend around any single person while shopping. That's longer than you spend eating lunch unless you're at a nice restaurant. That's longer than the overwhelming majority of incidental person-to-person contacts. That's why even the crappiest masks dramatically reduce the rate of spread in the aggregate.
I don't believe these masks are as effective as people are lead to believe. So they probably contribute to spread.
No, they don't. There's absolutely no way to take the available data showing that masks are highly
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I've been wearing bandannas for many years in dusty environments, with the low-hanging corner tucked under the chin and up into one of the sides near the ear to form a breathing mask. Am I doing it wrong during the pandemic?
Depends how many layers of fabric you're breathing through, but single layer bandanas have performed very poorly in tests:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/1... [cnbc.com]
Surgical masks are readily available now (even genuine FDA approved ones), so wear one of those under your bandana for better protection -- or better, wear an N95 mask.
Not a believer in the /. medical community but... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Not a believer in the /. medical community but. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, vaccinated or not, it lowers the chance of the people around you getting Covid. Don't be a dick.
Everyone's chance of being exposed to the virus is ~100% regardless of masks.
"largest study of its kind" referenced by TFA is not even showing much in the way of usefulness in slowing transmission. It is showing cloth masks have no effect which is the majority of the mask wearing population.
It also says there is no effect for medical masks among those under 50 which is something I don't understand. If they do work I don't know why they wouldn't work for those under 50.
Re:Not a believer in the /. medical community but. (Score:5, Insightful)
if you're vaxxed then your chances of ending up in the ICU from COVID are less than most things you do in life. if you're not then it's your fault for not protecting yourself
I don't wear a mask to keep myself out of the hospital, I wear a mask so if I *do* become infected, I don't spread it to someone who hasn't been vaccinated or they didn't develop an immune response to the vaccine, or to someone who was vaccinated and has a breakthrough infection that turns out to be one of the rare serious breakthrough cases.
But, then I also put my shopping cart in the cart area.
Re: Not a believer in the /. medical community but (Score:3)
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Yeah, fuck those people who can't get the vaccine like children https://www.npr.org/2021/08/05... [npr.org] . If they don't want to lose their sense of taste to Covid (or worse) then they should just hurry up and grow up!
And hey, let's pack them into small classrooms and then pass laws that strip away local community's ability to protect them while we're at it!
Re:Not a believer in the /. medical community but. (Score:5, Insightful)
people who're vaccinated can still be infected, who can pass it on to people who cannot be vaccinated because they are the family of these people
the fact of the matter is, as much as you want to live in a world in which people only get what they deserve, this is a mindset for children, not adults
there's nothing you can do .. increasing the chances you pass something on to somebody else, even if the both of you are unlikely to end up with bad medical outcomes is still
1) giving more live/time to the virus to mutate
2) contributing to the transmission chain that can end up in people who have medical conditions that make them weak to the virus
it's so little to do, and anything you tell yourself that only people who deserve it will get hurt is just not true
Re: Why not wear a mask (Score:5, Insightful)
..."that questioned the usefulness of them"
Asking questions is not the same thing as getting answers. Humans are persuaded to impute answers from how a question is asked, and if it is asked. Questions do not imply answers.
SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory virus. In the air. Like any other crap in the air that you don't want to breathe: filter it out.
Duh.
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The second is the discomfort of keeping one on for a length of time. It's really not a big deal to throw one on for a minute if you're just going in to pick up an order that's ready, or grabbing fast food. It's a lot more uncomfortable if you're actually doing a full shopping trip in a larger store. COVID has been with us for over a year now, so you're absolutely going to have people who feel they don't have any of the health issues that would put them in a higher risk category for COVID actually killing them or making them severely sick. They've been out in all of this stuff for the last year and have been fine. So as long as they're washing their hands often and trying to keep a bit of a distance from other shoppers, they may feel like the discomfort of the mask isn't really worth it to them. (Don't forget that this includes people having a harder time understanding you when you talk with one on. It gets old fast having to talk really loud and still repeat yourself several times to the salesperson or clerk.)
You do realize that some workers have to wear a mask all day long and somehow they survive? I think you can spend an hour at the mall with a mask. Those people that have to wear a mask include health care workers to have to help COVID patients die more comfortably because much of the country is unwilling to undergo the minor inconvenience or wearing a mask or take a vaccine that hundreds of millions of other people have already taken.
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Because I usually do not spend a lot of time in areas where bullets are flying around every other minute. If it wasn't for a virus going around that kills you, I wouldn't really bother wearing a mask either.
Try to find an example that is closer to reality, please.
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That "very mall portion" is third only to heart disease and cancer. Which is arguably also hitting mostly people who are past their 40s, but hey, it gave our pension system a much needed breather, maybe we should let the thing run its course, right? What's been good for the medieval ages can't be bad now.
Re:Not a believer in the /. medical community but. (Score:5, Insightful)
Shootings, rain, and cold weather are not contagious.
Re:Not a believer in the /. medical community but. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not always wear a bulletproof vest? It's a really small thing. Why not always have an umbrella? It's a rally small thing. Why not always have a down jacket? It's a really small thing.
I have never once infected someone with a gunshot by not wearing a bulletproof vest. My doctor even claims it's impossible (if you're one of the sheep that believes in doctors), bullets don't just spontaneous burst from someone's chest the way viral particles are spread by infected people.
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Just tell them that studies show people who wear masks have bigger p**ises.
This is slashdot, you don't need to censor the word "p*nis" here.
Disposable masks (Score:2)
So, what about the disposable blue masks that you find practically everyone handing out at the front door of businesses?
I guess they're thinly lined with cotton, or a cottony substance? But they're nothing like the masks people are hand-sewing and selling, or even the cloth ones you buy of the shelf. I heard a lot of earlier claims that the disposables are useless for COVID and are kind of like the "security theater" the TSA does with taking off your belt and shoes before boarding a plane?
Re: Disposable masks (Score:5, Informative)
The blue masks _are_ surgical masks. It's the homemade masks cut from regular cloth that are less effective.
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Surgical masks are incredibly good at blocking droplets. A superspreader could spit in your face and you'd be fine.
But they are weak vs aerosols. In an unventilated space, you'll catch it in a few minutes.
Not exactly a great study. (Score:2, Insightful)
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Exactly. If you read down (page 23) you'll see that in the control villages (no increased masks) they had 0.76% positive, and in the cloth masked, 0.74% (5% relative reduction, or 95% ineffective), and surgical masked, 0.67% (11.2% relative reduction, or 88.8% ineffective). For WHO-defined symptoms, it's 8.5% relative reduction (91.5% ineffective) and 13.6% relative reduction (86.4% ineffective) on page 24. Even by age group (page 28), the BEST scenario for 60+ is that they're 34.7% less likely to get it
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Keep in mind that not everyone wore masks in this study. The population of the villages was recommended to wear masks, then later on researchers observed that only about 40% of people actually were wearing masks. If mask use were universal, the protection would likely have been much more than 10%.
Key word: "Surgical." (Score:3)
They got a significant reduction if people wore N95-type masks, not whatever cloth thing they picked up at the discount store. "Cloth mask villages" had a dramatically lower effectiveness rate.
The study also makes the point that mask wearing had no significant effect for people under the age of 50. Not just "they didn't report symptoms," but "they didn't have any change in seropositivity," which means that masks didn't make any difference at all for people under 50.
They also had an increase in social distancing due to education and social pressure, which had a small but noticeable effect. This probably accounted for the small positive effect seen from wearing cloth masks.
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They got a significant reduction if people wore N95-type masks, not whatever cloth thing they picked up at the discount store. "Cloth mask villages" had a dramatically lower effectiveness rate.
Surgical masks are not N95 masks and are cheap and readily available. They didn't include N95 respirators in their tests.
The team tested both cloth and surgical masks and found especially strong evidence that surgical masks are effective in preventing COVID-19. In the study, surgical masks prevented one in three symptomatic infections among community members 60 years and older.
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They got a significant reduction if people wore N95-type masks, not whatever cloth thing they picked up at the discount store. "Cloth mask villages" had a dramatically lower effectiveness rate.
Surgical masks are not N95 masks. They're just three-layer or four-layer non-woven polypropylene (or polyethylene or polycarbonate or polystyrene or polyester) masks with ear loops and a flexible nose strip of some sort. They're those flat blue things that they hand out for free at the entrance to every Wal-Mart store in the country.
IIIRC, cloth masks are expected to reduce the spread by about 10%. Surgical masks are expected to reduce it by about 30%. N95 masks or equivalent are expected to reduce it b
The raw data on page 47 tells a sad story (Score:5, Informative)
Within the study period of only 8 weeks, 7.62% in the intervention group and 8.62% in the control group developed _symptoms_ - so we can safely assume the ratio of people who got infected without having symptoms in that period was actually much higher. The pandemic does not suddenly stop at the end of the study period. Even if only the symptomatic people were infected, at this rate of spread, after about two years, everybody has had his Covid encounter, with the intervention group reaching that state after 108 weeks and the control group after 94 weeks. Much earlier for both groups if asymptomatic infections are accounted for.
Masking may slow down the spread a little, but it does not change that (almost) everybody gets infected within the not-too-distant future.
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Masking may slow down the spread a little, but it does not change that (almost) everybody gets infected within the not-too-distant future
Pretty much - so we need a vaccination uptake globally, of probably 60 to 70 percent?
Even with flu vaccines, the estimated global mortality rate is somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 - quite a wide range there, but I would think it is incredibly difficult to get exact figures.
Given that in under 2 years, Covid-19 has resulted in 4,500,000 deaths - and who knows what the actual figure is - the global vaccination programme is critical to controlling this, in the same way we control flu.
We are so far from t
No serious person had any doubts. (Score:2)
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No numbers in TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. Not the first — far from it [science.org].
The results show that increased mask-wearing -- the result of a community-level mask distribution and in-person promotion campaign -- led to a significant reduction in the percentage of people with COVID-19
"Significant", you see. What's "significant"? The only elaboration in TFA is: "In the study, surgical masks prevented one in three symptomatic infections among community members 60 years and older."
Did they not measure the effect on people under 60? Or was the effect so abysmal, it was not worth mentioning — and could've been used by the crazy mask-foes to claim, masks don't help? Can't have that, can we?
Also, how many 60+ people are there in rural Bangladesh anyway — given their life-expectancy of 72 years?
Finally, there is not a word on the downsides of mask-wearing. And there are always downsides — wearing a full-blown scaphander would've been even more effective against spreading disease, but no one is recommending (much less mandating) that...
Just saw Karen at a SB meeting (Score:2)
And she said there isn't any evidence that masks work and she has 30 years of nursing experience. These times are so confusing, don't know who to believe /s
Works for mouth breathers (Score:2)
The dick nose strategy should work fine for mouth breathers.
Actual reduction (Score:5, Informative)
This is a pretty interesting study that isn't quite captured in press release. Pages 23,24,27 are good summaries
The important parts:
Wearing surgical mask has ~11% reduction on seroprevalence, with high degree of confidence.
Wearing cloth mask has ~5% reduction on seroprevalence, but p-factor is 0.5, meaning this result is meaningless.
Interestingly, the effect is much stronger regarding "symptoms" (which would generally include other diseases, such as cold)
Wearing surgical mask has ~14% reduction on symptoms, with high degree of confidence
Wearing cloth mask has ~9% reduction on symptoms, with high degree of confidence
Now, the interesting parts are when seroprevalence is broken down by age (a
For >60 year old, seroprevalence decrease is 34%, high confidence
For 50-60 year old, seroprevalence decrease is 23%, high confidence
For 40, and 40-50 year old, there is no meaningful change
Summary (Score:3)
From their study of symptomatic observation, cloth masks 5% reduction. Surgical masks 11.2% reduction. Pretty much what I expected.... weak. Even by using WHO-defined "symptoms", it is 8.5% and 13.6%, respectively. Funny how that didn't end up in the article summary. I am sure if it were a 0.5% reduction, the title of this article would have been the same.
Other studies I have seen seem to confirm this average 10% or so effectiveness in the real-world.
>"The findings come at a crucial time in the U.S., when many in-person events have resumed and children -- including those who are under 12 and do not yet qualify for vaccination -- are returning to in-person school."
Children without major pre-existing health issues are statistically at essentially zero risk of death or severe symptoms from COVID-19. Also not quoted in the summary or article- the study shows that persons under 40 years of age had essentially ZERO change in observed infection rate from wearing either type of mask. Imagine that. So yeah, it is timely for deciding to stop wasting time masking children.
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Who can still pass it on to others who are bankrupted, crippled or die from it, Sherlock.
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>"Who can still pass it on to others who are bankrupted, crippled or die from it, Sherlock."
Not if they are vaccinated or already obtained natural immunity. So it is their own choice if they want to be unvaccinated and risk the less than 1% chance of "bankrupted, crippled or die from it."
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From their study of symptomatic observation, cloth masks 5% reduction. Surgical masks 11.2% reduction. Pretty much what I expected.... weak. Even by using WHO-defined "symptoms", it is 8.5% and 13.6%, respectively. Funny how that didn't end up in the article summary. I am sure if it were a 0.5% reduction, the title of this article would have been the same.
How "Significant"...
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So yeah, it is timely for deciding to stop wasting time masking children.
You seem to be an idiot.
The study makes pretty clear that kids with masks: don't spread it to the elderly.
As you probably know: kids get the virus just like anyone else. And spread it, just like anyone else.
Maybe not as useless as you're making it out to be (Score:3)
Bad Summary (Score:5, Informative)
This study is exciting as it was fairly well-done and possibly the first robust evidence we have (other than comparing outcomes for similar states with different policies).
But the actual takeaways of the study are
* It's not that surgical masks work it's they work *surprising well* (still a small effect - ~10% reduction in symptomatic infection - but much more than I would have thought)
* Conversely cloth masks *don't work* at protecting against infection. They saw a small, not statistically confirmable reduction in cloth masks. (They also saw an increase in social distancing when people wore them, so fare bet any result is due to that.)
* However they did see a slightly larger effect in overall reduction in symptoms (~8% vs 5%) with cloth masks
* They do potentially reduce transmission to others ( with 30% masking leading and an overall 10% reduction observed )
* Surprisingly even surgical masks didn't really do anything to protect you from infection if you were https://imgur.com/a/KgO9WS8 )
* Lots of stuff I won't summarize on what actually works for getting people to mask and follow good policies which is what the paper really focuses on (notably legal sanctions and social signalling did not work)
Unfortunately, There are plenty of limitations even though it was a relatively good study
* They only checked symptomatic persons. Conceivably could have had as many (or even more) infections with masking but had them pushed into asymptomatic cases
* Behaviors also changed (such as social distancing) which makes it less clear what the physical effectiveness of masks are, although we can compare cloth and surgical
* Relied on self-reporting
* Data is from before Delta variant / vaccines
What I personally (not the study authors) take away: /N95) - good chance cloth isn't doing anything
* If you're going to mask, where a surgical or better (KN95
* If you're around people in older age range/immunocompromised, makes sense to mask. But if you hangout with people less than 50, seems like no real benefit (but you could try wearing something better than a surgical mask)
* This was before vaccines, but, e.g., the risk profile of a vaxed 80 year old is about the same as an unvaxxed 50 year old, which (other things equal) may mean that vaccines equate to not needing to mask, as we believed originally
* Provides continuing evidence that they total viral load you're exposed to is important for clinical outcome. So masking, social distancing, ventilation, and things like *spending less time* in whatever area of risk may reduce your chance of bad outcome
Data point (Score:2)
Did I read this right? They tripled mask usage from 13% to 42% and the impact was a whopping 9.3% reduction in cases. For cloth masks the reduction was only 5%?
It sounds like masking is about as effective as asking a Tinder date to pull out. :/
A few questions... (Score:2)
The results show that increased mask-wearing -- the result of a community-level mask distribution and in-person promotion campaign -- led to a significant reduction in the percentage of people with COVID-19, based on symptom reporting and SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing. The team tested both cloth and surgical masks and found especially strong evidence that surgical masks are effective in preventing COVID-19. In the study, surgical masks prevented one in three symptomatic infections among community members 60 years and older.
"Prevented one in three infections" - How do they determine this? I guess what they meant to say was that the group wearing surgical masks were one-third less likely to catch Covid-19. That's a horrible way to say that.
The findings come at a crucial time in the U.S., when many in-person events have resumed and children -- including those who are under 12 and do not yet qualify for vaccination -- are returning to in-person school.
Yes, of course - there are virtually no differences between 12 year-old and younger American children and 60 year and older grandparents in In Bangladesh. Except, of course, you knw, one group are children and the other are senior citizens, and the children struggle to keep their mouth/nose
Re: (Score:2)
way more lethal for the senior citizens, so they are a bit more motivated to try and wear the mask properly.
They wear the mask to protect the others around them. Not for their own risk.
It's so obvious. (Score:2)
We know viruses and especially SARS-COV-2 travel on miniscule water droplets.
When you wear a mask, it becomes damp. Where does that dampness come from? From your breath, obviously. Ergo, less droplets expelled into the environment, ergo less viral spread.
I feel vindicated (Score:2)
I know I'm too late for this to be truly discussed upon but it's a matte rof personal frustration now.
According to TFA, this is the first such study (meaning in the larger populace instead of medical environments) if I read that correctly.
And THIS is what I have been asking for SO many times when people kept demanding masks to be worn. My question was "Are we SURE demanding populace at large to wear masks has a net benefit even though most of them fail to handle the masks properly?"
I was assured that yes, t
This is getting so Goddamn old (Score:3)
2. Airborne illnesses are, by definition, transmitted by droplets in the air. [webmd.com]
3. You have two small holes and one big hole in the front of your face.
4. When you talk or breathe out, droplets come out of one or more of those holes.
5. If you put something in front of those holes it will, at a minimum, catch a few of those drops.
6. Unless you poke that thing up someone's nose, ideally any drops that it catches will be drops that cannot infect anyone else.
This is not that hard to understand. No one should need to see studies like this to convince themselves that mask wearing does, in fact, slow the spread of airborne illness.
For anyone who, after all this, still believes that wearing a mask is pointless because "it's not going to do anything", I have a great little demonstration for you:
1. Find a bucket
2. Fill the bucket with urine.
3. Find someone to throw the the contents of the bucket toward you. Just rant at a few people about your feelings on masks, trust me - someone will volunteer to help you out.
4. Shower thoroughly.
5. Repeat steps 1 and 2.
6. Find a sheet.
7. Set up a clothesline.
8. Hang the sheet over the clothesline.
9. Stand behind the sheet.
10. Repeat step 3 with the sheet between yourself and your new friend.
Notice how you smell a lot less like piss after step 10 than you did after step 3? That's the same general concept as masks.
This is a conspiracy (Score:2)
Re:Missing one detail. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mask ONLY work, if they have BLM corporate branding, or are being worn by communist dumb shits.
Have you checked recently to see if your preferred news personality is still alive?
Re: (Score:2)
The statistic probability of those people all dying the same week is pretty weak.
I disagree - please show your work to establish this outcome has a low probability of occurring, hand-wavy "aww, come on" arguments will not be accepted.
Who would want to infect radio hosts no one had previously ever heard of? To what end?
Re: Missing one detail. (Score:2)
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Thank God covid + stupidity = death. Goodbye.
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15 minutes is longer than most people spend with other people unless you live together or work together. That's enough to eliminate probably 90% of infections right of the bat.
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https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanp... [pbs.org]
15 minutes before contracting Covid 19 in a room wearing cloth/surgeons mask vs 25 hours for an N95 mask.
What studies? I tried to find them and I can't.
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Morons gonna moron.
It's a bit late [go.com] to worry about the morons. They've made their choice and will die with it [wptv.com].
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And I'm glad for it.
No, really. If infection numbers go down, I have to move my ass out of this comfy home office of mine and go back to work. But as long as there is anti-vax, anti-mask idiots keeping the infection numbers up, my government keeps telling my employer to let me work from home.
Quite frankly, if I had anything but contempt for these morons, it would probably be gratitude that they risk, and often even lose, their life just for my comfort.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Did you actually read the study and understand the results? Cloth masks are useless according to the data and confidence. Yes, some value to surgical masks but even that not having the benefit our media here touting.
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You’re basing this on data from?
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Problem 1: Surgical masks need to be changed every 2 hours.
Problem 2: Medical personnel (and patients) need the masks more than non-medical.
There isn't enough surgical masks for every adult. So everyone else is wearing cloth to appease the feeble-minded.
I don't know what 3rd world country you live in, but there's no shortage of surgical masks in the USA, in a 10 second google search, I found a half dozen vendors selling ASTM/FDA certified surgical masks -- You can buy them by the thousand and get them overnighted if you want to.
Surgical masks do not need to be changed every 2 hours.
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Problem 1: Surgical masks need to be changed every 2 hours. Problem 2: Medical personnel (and patients) need the masks more than non-medical.
There isn't enough surgical masks for every adult. So everyone else is wearing cloth to appease the feeble-minded.
All you have to do to get a surgical mask for free is to walk into any Wal-Mart store in the country. They hand them out at the door. There is not a shortage of surgical masks, nor has there ever been a shortage.
There is a shortage of NIOSH-certified respirators (N95 or better), but even then, you can readily buy ear-loop-based KN95 masks in whatever quantities you want from Amazon, and assuming they aren't fake, they provide almost the same protection.
Re: (Score:2)
We are only delaying the inevitable. Everyone is going to get COVID. It is just a matter of when your turn is up. Go get vaccinated.
If the hospitals are filling up, then its prudent to wear a mask. If not, these maskers who shame everyone can go fuck themselves.
If you wait until the hospitals fill up to wear a mask, then it's too late and a lot of people will die because they couldn't get a bed, at that point even a full lockdown will take weeks to slow the the infections.