191–200 of 235 posts
My first reaction was to consider this as pretty damning of mass use. But when I considered it more I don't think the study is as damning of masks as it is of mask mandates. The problem is only ~30% more people wore masks in the intervention arm of the study. So the best possible outcome, removing 30% from the infection group entirely (essentially taking them out of the population -- a "perfect spherical mask" approx…
I was militant pro-mask when I was unvaccinated. Now that I'm vaccinated and have no comorbidities, I'm OK with being exposed to COVID-19. In fact, I want to have a mild case of COVID-19 to get natural immunity. Natural immunity seems to be more effective than the vaccine for long lasting immunity.
I’m not quite at that point of “fuck it, I’m vaccinated, come at me”, but I have to travel soon and the country I’m transiting through (Iceland) now requires a test. I’m nervous about it because I’m vaccinated, so I very well could have a mild infection and not know it, and get denied boarding and quarantined at home. At least it’s an antigen test and those miss most non-symptomatic infection anyway.
Does the paper reveal the seroprevalence by control village and intervention village? I just scanned it and can find no such information. EDIT: Table A14 is the closest I can find but it is only coefficients, not the underlying counts.
This study didn't perform seroprevalence sampling.
From https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publicati... , pg 2, Abstract section, para 2
This is truly great news, as we've need some controlled studies. However, _mandates_, literally threatening people with police violence, bodily or financial harm, is not the correct way forward. I think the best solution is improved mandates for airflow. It's a lot easier to improve airflow in a building than it is to police and enforce a mask mandate.
This is naive. There is a significant portion of the population that are not going to cooperated with health safety protocols unless there is a real chance of them going to jail or getting a fine. We're talking wearing a mask and saving lives.
Would most people be cooperating with the health and safety protocols if there was an outbreak of Ebola?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This study didn't perform seroprevalence sampling.
It did: "Blood samples were collected from N=10,952 consenting, symptomatic individuals." From https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publicati... , pg 2, Abstract section, para 2
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's surprising to me that cloth masks can't even do the 11% of surgical masks. Which isn't much, but surgical masks are non-optimal for many reasons. Not to mention that this doesn't seem the same as "while wearing a surgical mask you only get 11% increase in protection" but is a population-level thing. There was still non-compliance that presumably lowered the efficacy. I would've intuitively guessed that the bette…
"Cloth masks" can mean anything. I wish early in the pandemic someone would have made some piece of equipment to asses whether a given cloth mask is good or not. Most people have a few now and I'm sure they would like to use the best one.
My first reaction was to consider this as pretty damning of mass use. But when I considered it more I don't think the study is as damning of masks as it is of mask mandates. The problem is only ~30% more people wore masks in the intervention arm of the study. So the best possible outcome, removing 30% from the infection group entirely (essentially taking them out of the population -- a "perfect spherical mask" approx…
The interventions the article mentioned did not include a mandate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't you sharing air with others in any common indoors space? I thought that was the whole aerosols debate that's basically settled by now, i.e. virus can stay suspending in the air for extended periods. With the Delta variant's characteristics this is also a much bigger problem (i.e. the same indoor space that might have been ok is no longer ok). There were early studies with the less infectious variants that show…
no, it's not "settled science" like that. the virus must traverse a gauntlet of death before reaching your juicy mucus membranes, including dessication and all manner of external forces that will inactivate it in the meantime. it falls apart in droves outside the body. you need constant exposure to warm, moist, infected exhaust so that the virus has trillions of chances of taking hold in your respiratory system, and…
Also: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/ferret-study-rein...
Even early on with the Diamond Princess you've seen wide spread of the virus despite passengers being largely confined to their cabins. There were multiple other examples.
We also know the Delta variant is more infectious.
I'm not saying distancing doesn't work. Even if you assume the virus is spread in the indoors air it's not a terrible bad assumptions to think that a person emitting virus continuously will have a higher concentration of virus in their immediate vicinity. So sure, it's layers of defense. The mask is also about limiting the emissions in the first place and distancing indoors is not always practical in public busy spaces.
But sure. It is not settled science. Science takes time. If your point is that we don't understand exactly what happens then sure, but we rarely do for anything in this field anyways.
Quite convinced we have to prepare on getting infected some time. Covid will be around for the coming years and years. Nice that you have less chance of getting that, and then what? You can’t walk around with a mask indefinitely. Saw another report this week that links to the viral load and the impact: low viral load = no symptoms, no immunity. Medium viral load is minimal symptoms, Immunization. High viral load = se…
> You can’t walk around with a mask indefinitely. I want to be clear I'm not advocating for this, but you can't? Why not? What's the time limit?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because dead people don't replicate viruses well. Got it.
Only 0.6% will die (on average over all age groups). 99.4% will have an immunity for half a year.
And then there's long Covid. . .
So yeah, sheesh. It's hardly any worse than taking out several nations worth of people with VX.