201–210 of 232 posts
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We can barely get folks to wear the things in the first place, let alone over the nose. You want the CDC to add "oh and you have to shave your beard off" to the mix? Really?
If you're not ready to require that the masks be effective, why require them at all?
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> Scientists spent several years trying to convince the powers that be that Covid spread was airborne. Several months, perhaps? The article you link to and the letter it references are both dated July 6 2020. Even now COVID-19 has only existed for a couple of years (not several). It is impossible for anyone to have spent several years (by July 2020) doing anything relating to a specific virus or the consequential dis…
The evidence for finding that Covid was airborne was discussed before the letter was written. The Pacific Princess, where the virus continued to spread between passengers who were locked down in their cabins, was in January 2020, for instance.
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Masks are our "doing our part" symbols, the Covid ribbon if you will. The science on anything other than N95 masks is flimsy, but it's low-effort and low-cost, so why not. It feels like better than nothing, it probably is, so we go along with it.
Is the science flimsy? I genuinely thought that the science was very clear that good masking reduces the rate of community transmission?
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6928e2.htm
> Among 139 clients exposed to two symptomatic hair stylists with confirmed COVID-19 while both the stylists and the clients wore face masks, no symptomatic secondary cases were reported; among 67 clients tested for SARS-CoV-2, all test results were negative. Adherence to the community’s and company’s face-covering policy likely mitigated spread of SARS-CoV-2.
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I just checked the data from https://covid19.who.int/ and Austria had 93 cases per 10,000 last week where as USA had 164 cases per 10,000. Which seems like a significant difference. I don't know if Austria mandates masks but your last sentence doesn't seem to hold up according to WHO. I know South Korea mandates masks and they had 5 cases per 10,000 last week. :)
The case numbers are meaningless due to differences in testing rates. They don't tell us anything reliable about which strategy is more effective. The actual infection numbers are way higher because most people never get tested. The only numbers that are even somewhat comparable between countries are hospitalizations and deaths.
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Regular cloth masks do not filter virus floating in the air you breathe and they never did. Here's one of the scientists from President Biden's Covid advisory council being interviewed on PBS last year: > I have had concerns that date back to april of 2020 about the concept of masking. Needless to say it's a political hot button beyond anything I've ever seen in public health, and yet at the same time i think we've a…
A 33% efficacy improvement seems great to me for such a simple, easy, cheap, and accessible countermeasure.
So one, you would need to know you were casually exposed (most folks don’t) And two, you would need to have a pretty good supply of masks carried with you at all times to replenish on every exposure.
The discussion here about masks is interesting. Many people talking about what their own personal preference for masks, exposure, etc. are. I'd just like to say: the problem, and where the division (which causes bad health outcomes!) comes from is: deciding what your strategy is, and then trying to force other people to do the same thing . If my strategy was: don't wear masks and hope to get omicron, and then I force…
The discussion here about masks is interesting. Many people talking about what their own personal preference for masks, exposure, etc. are. I'd just like to say: the problem, and where the division (which causes bad health outcomes!) comes from is: deciding what your strategy is, and then trying to force other people to do the same thing . If my strategy was: don't wear masks and hope to get omicron, and then I force…
To me, I’ll wear a mask if required of a place I want to patronage, but will not at any other time. The efficacy vs discomfort equation is simply not worth it to me.
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I bought then for about $1 in a 240 pack on Amazon. Plus Amazon takes FSA debit cards, so it’s a hassle-free, tax-free purchase.
Do you trust Amazon’s supply chain?
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A 33% efficacy improvement seems great to me for such a simple, easy, cheap, and accessible countermeasure.
Personally I think cloth masks are worthless for anything but the most casual exposure to the virus, and then for it to maintain any reasonable protective effect, you would need to remove and dispose of the mask as those luckily trapped virus particles can dislodge and infect. Continuing to wear a cloth mask that has accumulated virus particles in it just turns a chance casual exposure into a long term one. So one, y…
1) not being able to touch your mucus membranes with your hands anymore
2) limiting the amount of air circulating near your face by limiting induced currents due to your inhale/exhale cycle
If I'm right, your conclusions about gaining the effectiveness of a simple cloth mask are completely off base.
Definitely curious if you happen to know of a study that looks at the mechanisms of protection for a non filtering mask!
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Imagine showing this article, complete with the date, to someone from March 2020. Two years into the pandemic and the news media is just finally getting around to recommending that people wear basic respiratory protection? They would wonder if our manufacturing capacity had been destroyed in a war! This whole pandemic has demonstrated abject failure of our institutions. It was very easy to pin it on a terrible microm…
Those masks and face shields should sport US flags and bald eagles and nationalist slogans. Not only should we all have them, distributed by the government, but wearing them should be a visible form of patriotism.
But when a fire alarm goes off and everybody leaves a building, you're not being clever by staying. Sometimes conditions change and it really does make individual sense for everybody to move in the same general direction.
As I've gotten older, and especially as hammered home by the pandemic, I've accepted that groupthink is unfortunately going to exist regardless. As such, it may as well be nudged towards positive ends like encouraging people to protect themselves and their community, rather than destructive ends like denying that a problem exists.