Danish study finds face masks provide limited protection to wearer • Hacker News Board

Re: Danish study finds face masks provide limited protection to wearer

#71

Post by mrfusion » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

comicjk wrote: post #57

mrfusion wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it might be a good point but I’m not quite understanding. Why does 6% matter if the statistical significance works out? Also I can’t seem to see how you’re saying the study has asymptomatic and presymptomatic confused. (I don’t have a great background in all this so I could def be missing this.)

The study is fine, but the way it's using the word "asymptomatic" is not consistent with the conclusion you drew from it, and the 6% shows why. A case which is "asymptomatic" in the study has no noticeable symptoms through the whole course of infection. If you know in advance that you're that kind of case, then you're less likely to spread the disease. But 94% of cases are not that kind of case, and no test except wa…

Thanks for further explaining. It seems like we’re working off different facts.

This says 25% to 80% of infected are asymptomatic. So it’s pretty awesome if this study supports the idea that they’re not very contagious.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/50-percent-of-people-...

BTW. I’ll read through the original study I posted to see how they handle presymptomatic.

And you certainly raise a good point that there’s no way to know is you’re presymptomatic.

Re: Danish study finds face masks provide limited protection to wearer

#72

Post by kaba0 » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

J-dawg wrote: post #53

happytoexplain wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the people who are obviously just complaining about masks for ideological/"Karen" reasons, I have to say I've been totally caught off guard during this pandemic by the existence of people like you (not in a critical way). I can relate to it feeling a little awkward at first wearing a mask in public in a culture that doesn't usually do that, but, despite being a social person and sympathizing with the social…

This might make you even more surprised about my existence, but I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the "ideological" types. Let me put it another way: why weren't you wearing a mask during flu season every year? Or, given that Covid will probably exist in some form for many years to come (even with a vaccine), when will you stop wearing one? Because you could make a case for mandatory mask wearing at all times, foreve…

Sorry, but this is a really self-centric view on the issue. It is absolutely not an individual choice, and it should not be. Also, it is a hyperbole to compare it to “if it saves even one live”, when in reality you have to wear a mask to decrease the R rate, so that the country’s hospitals doesn’t get absolutely flooded with people due to the exponential rate of the infection - making them unable to cure people even if they were to need treatment for other reasons then covid. So basically, in order to have working modern medicine, everyone has to wear masks..

Re: Danish study finds face masks provide limited protection to wearer

#73

Post by duckmysick » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

J-dawg wrote: post #54

hedgehog wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of evidence mask campaigns slow transmission. It's not fun but I see it as a minuscule sacrifice for me to wear a mask to the grocery store if it saves even one person a trip to the hospital. The sad reality is the grocery store _is_ a contaminated danger zone, and will be until we get this thing under control. The sliver of good news is that lowering the growth rate just slightly from above 1.0 to bel…

> There's plenty of evidence mask campaigns slow transmission By how much do they slow transmission? > It's not fun but I see it as a minuscule sacrifice for me to wear a mask to the grocery store if it saves even one person a trip to the hospital People go to hospital with flu every year. You or I might have unknowingly spread it around and caused someone to go to hospital before. Will you wear a mask every flu seas…

We can estimate if it's worth. Let's say the yearly economic burden of flu in the United States is $11.2 billion [1]. Now we need to compare it to the total cost of wearing masks - both manufacturing and distribution, but also the burden on mental health you mentioned in your other post. Actuaries can help us find such monetary value. Then we have to find out how much we will save if people start wearing masks (i.e. how effective the masks are). Finally we compare costs and savings and form our conclusions.

For example, assuming 330 million Americans would spend about $20 on masks every flu season, we would need the flu cases to drop by 59% to break even. It's based on a massive amount of assumptions and shortcuts. We probably won't need 100% of the population to wear masks. And I didn't include the cost of mental health, since I have no idea how to estimate it. But we can start from there.

1 - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29801998/

Re: Danish study finds face masks provide limited protection to wearer

#74

Post by christophilus » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 1:59 PM UTC

stateofnounion wrote: post #37

Glad everyone's so quick to pick out the issues with methodology here. Now go back to all the "wear-a-mask" studies and apply the same criticisms.

Yes. They all have problems. Small sample sizes, or non randomized groups, not double blind, etc. But, it’s all we have. The preponderance of data (imperfect as it may be) suggests that a public mask policy is prudent. Given the extremely low burden of wearing a mask, and the weight of the evidence in its favor, I really can’t understand anti maskers. Most of my friends are anti mask, and I’ve listened and tried to understand, but I always come away thinking they’re simply uninformed. Most of them get their information from sources that border on being conspiracy theorists.