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Show HN: Japan's mask culture saves lives. The West needs to adopt mask culture

maskssavelives.org

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Re: Show HN: Japan's mask culture saves lives. The West needs to adopt mask culture

#11

Post by seltzered_ »

A few points:

- There's an ongoing effort to promote civilian use of masks, see: https://www.facebook.com/groups/640968383371577 and their document 'Hong Kong Protocol" https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mvc6evI2qzU3M8MkrLSqKJBT...

- The Surgeon General may be saying not to wear masks because they have to be done correctly, you don't want to try and buy an N95 mask (at time of this writing in USA) because:

  - First responders in the US need N95 respirators right now! I donated mine and plan to make a cloth mask.

  - You might be wearing it wrong! See NIOSH's guide on facial hairstyle and respirators: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/pdfs/FacialHairWmask11282017-508.pdf

  - You need to dispose or disinfect after use.

  - Most importantly, if you're wearing an N95 with a valve, you may just be spreading the virus out if you're an asymptomatic carrier.
- People are currently looking into the best mask to wear, see https://twitter.com/lucasgonzalez/status/1242468271825313792 & https://twitter.com/magghu/status/1241361090954571781

I'm onboard with your overall message, but think it needs to be crafted a bit better.

Re: Show HN: Japan's mask culture saves lives. The West needs to adopt mask culture

#12

Post by fasteddie31003 »

dgrin91 wrote: post #6

Isn't this the epitome of causation vs correlation? I'm not saying masks don't help, but this site doesn't say or link to why masks are the way. For example, Japan has over double the population of SK, yet SK has ~9x more cases. Yet both are "high mask-wearing culture". And of course, China, which is "medium", breaks this model heavily. Masks didn't help. Lockdowns helped.

I totally agree that this is nothing more than correlation at this point. I'm all for a double-blind study and would love to better quantify mask-wearing. I am saying: wearing masks seems like an easy thing to do that could potentially limit the COVID-19 infection rate.

Re: Show HN: Japan's mask culture saves lives. The West needs to adopt mask culture

#13

Post by cybertronic »

dgrin91 wrote: post #6

Isn't this the epitome of causation vs correlation? I'm not saying masks don't help, but this site doesn't say or link to why masks are the way. For example, Japan has over double the population of SK, yet SK has ~9x more cases. Yet both are "high mask-wearing culture". And of course, China, which is "medium", breaks this model heavily. Masks didn't help. Lockdowns helped.

They admit they don't have any evidence: "We need hard data that show a direct effect of a strong mask-wearing culture to lower COVID-19 virality. We only have antidotal research at this point."

But nevertheless "The West needs to adopt mask culture"

Re: Show HN: Japan's mask culture saves lives. The West needs to adopt mask culture

#14

Post by 2T1Qka0rEiPr »

I'm sorry, but the proof made on this site in support of the efficacy of wearing a face mask appears to be simply looking at a small sample of countries and finding a correlation between two variables. Completely putting the should we shouldn't we debate to one side, I'm not sure this site really contributes to this discussion in a scientific/novel way...

Re: Show HN: Japan's mask culture saves lives. The West needs to adopt mask culture

#15

Post by notahacker »

StavrosK wrote: post #5
dmlittle wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wearing a mask is not a 100% protection against getting infected Most things are never 100% safe. Wearing a seatbelt does not guarantee you won't be injured in case of an accident, it's still something everyone recognizes it's a good thing to wear. I wonder what the tipping point is in terms of something being silly to do vs. it makes sense to do it for the general public. I would guess that social stigma plays a b…

It's an example of fallacious thinking, "if it's not 100% effective, that means it's 0% effective".

Yep. There are certain circumstances when if it's not completely effective, don't bother might be a valid heuristic, like taking completely unnecessary risks simply because you have a mask to reduce them. But reluctance to wearing masks in the West isn't coupled with a commonsense avoidance of risks altogether..

Re: Show HN: Japan's mask culture saves lives. The West needs to adopt mask culture

#17

Post by jMyles »

dgrin91 wrote: post #6

Isn't this the epitome of causation vs correlation? I'm not saying masks don't help, but this site doesn't say or link to why masks are the way. For example, Japan has over double the population of SK, yet SK has ~9x more cases. Yet both are "high mask-wearing culture". And of course, China, which is "medium", breaks this model heavily. Masks didn't help. Lockdowns helped.

> And of course, China, which is "medium", breaks this model heavily. Masks didn't help. Lockdowns helped.

This seems an odd way to summarize your point. SK and Japan didn't do lockdowns, and yet fared better than any country that did.

Re: Show HN: Japan's mask culture saves lives. The West needs to adopt mask culture

#18

Post by mbreese »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #12
dgrin91 wrote: post #6

Isn't this the epitome of causation vs correlation? I'm not saying masks don't help, but this site doesn't say or link to why masks are the way. For example, Japan has over double the population of SK, yet SK has ~9x more cases. Yet both are "high mask-wearing culture". And of course, China, which is "medium", breaks this model heavily. Masks didn't help. Lockdowns helped.

I totally agree that this is nothing more than correlation at this point. I'm all for a double-blind study and would love to better quantify mask-wearing. I am saying: wearing masks seems like an easy thing to do that could potentially limit the COVID-19 infection rate.

And it could also give people a false sense of security. Masks may be helpful, but only in concert with other practices. Distancing is going to have a much larger impact on limiting the viral spread. If you have a bunch of people wearing masks that are only partially effective start gathering in large groups, you run the risk of negating all of the good generated from distancing.

Re: Show HN: Japan's mask culture saves lives. The West needs to adopt mask culture

#19

Post by nerfhammer »

2T1Qka0rEiPr wrote: post #14

I'm sorry, but the proof made on this site in support of the efficacy of wearing a face mask appears to be simply looking at a small sample of countries and finding a correlation between two variables. Completely putting the should we shouldn't we debate to one side, I'm not sure this site really contributes to this discussion in a scientific/novel way...

Country-sized groups of people are not small samples. There may be other biases but that's not one of them.

Re: Show HN: Japan's mask culture saves lives. The West needs to adopt mask culture

#20

Post by GuiA »

jMyles wrote: post #17
dgrin91 wrote: post #6

Isn't this the epitome of causation vs correlation? I'm not saying masks don't help, but this site doesn't say or link to why masks are the way. For example, Japan has over double the population of SK, yet SK has ~9x more cases. Yet both are "high mask-wearing culture". And of course, China, which is "medium", breaks this model heavily. Masks didn't help. Lockdowns helped.

> And of course, China, which is "medium", breaks this model heavily. Masks didn't help. Lockdowns helped. This seems an odd way to summarize your point. SK and Japan didn't do lockdowns, and yet fared better than any country that did.

Watch Tokyo closely over the next few days and weeks. History isn’t written yet.
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