71–80 of 119 posts
I'm a critical care doc and directly involved with COVID administrative policies for my health system organization. I have recently told friends and family to start buying and wearing medical masks. Our experience is that medical masks are very protective in protecting the wearer from catching the disease. Hospitals have plenty of masks now. A cloth mask prevents spread away from the wearer, but a medical mask protec…
For some further evidence, see Hong Kong; Nearly 8 million people live in some of the densest city of the world; from day one, hkers have been wearing masks en masse and implementing cleaning precautions -not just hands but also doors and lift buttons, etc;
The result is an infection rate proven to be extremely low: 700/M infected and 14/M deaths. That’s about 1/40th the rate of the US. This without hard confinement.
There have been additional measures to stop the importation of the virus, like enforced quarantine and intermittent closures or early closure of some businesses.
There has also been a mass test of more than 1.5M people with only about 40 cases found, so the infection rate _is_ really low.
What has not happened because of the mask? no deaths, no marked increase in hospital admissions for respiratory illnesses or infections caused by masks, no-one got carbon dioxide poisoning...
Is wearing a mask pleasant? No, it’s a pain in the a and I was quite sceptic at the beginning. I still think we may be overdoing it a bit in HK since there is so little infection, but no-one here is ready to live another SARS, so people do what’s right and don’t complain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Anything that in any way reduces the flow of virus particles by definition reduces the spreading of the virus. It does not. It's possible for a filter to break some droplets into smaller droplets that linger in the air for longer. Evidence suggests that masks are still a net benefit, but this is by scientific study, not "by definition".
I haven’t seen any research that indicates this. Would you mind sharing your source? Thanks!
That is probably not healthy, is it? Or not?
This thread is quite embarrassing. The science is clear ( https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8,)yet HN still argues against it. But, unlike others, I don't think this very surprising. Many (not all) HN readers, being software engineers, have a high level of pretentiousness that comes from being good in one field, and then carry over that arrogance into areas where they have no clue. Suddenly, you see so…
I'm a critical care doc and directly involved with COVID administrative policies for my health system organization. I have recently told friends and family to start buying and wearing medical masks. Our experience is that medical masks are very protective in protecting the wearer from catching the disease. Hospitals have plenty of masks now. A cloth mask prevents spread away from the wearer, but a medical mask protec…
How do you comment this then: https://videopress.com/v/4egEyh2b
Regarding the rest of the video, his claim of "masks have no effect" seems to be easily demonstrated as false from his experiments. Yes, some smoke does leak, but compare that to him exhaling without a mask. You would get a blast of vape smoke right in your face. The masks clearly filter some smoke and deflect the rest of the smoke away from where he's facing. While obviously not perfect, it looks like a clear improvement to me.
Finally, comparing smoke to covid-19 is disingenuous. You will almost never find individual virus particles floating around the air, they will instead be contained in water droplets which you exhale.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you comment this then: https://videopress.com/v/4egEyh2b
That seems to support parent's comment. The surgical masks prevented much of the smoke from going out the front, the "cloth mask he borrowed from his wife" let much of the smoke come through the mask. Regarding the rest of the video, his claim of "masks have no effect" seems to be easily demonstrated as false from his experiments. Yes, some smoke does leak, but compare that to him exhaling without a mask. You would g…
Is this the best we can do?
I'm a critical care doc and directly involved with COVID administrative policies for my health system organization. I have recently told friends and family to start buying and wearing medical masks. Our experience is that medical masks are very protective in protecting the wearer from catching the disease. Hospitals have plenty of masks now. A cloth mask prevents spread away from the wearer, but a medical mask protec…
What would qualify as a medical mask by your definition? Would this be distinct from a mask with N95 material?
Most medical masks are made of the same material out of China that filters > 95% of infectious particles. If you want extra protection, you can look for masks with an "ASTM Level" that gives additional support that the mask is medical grade.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty fed up of people acting so incredibly arrogant. Unless you can show evidence that wearing a mask is dangerous, and makes things worse, then just wear a mask. Stop trying to find reasons to prove everyone wrong. Some data someone else in the thread posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24952278
The Surgeon General said back in March that wearing masks increases the chance of spreading covid because people aren't trained on how to use them correctly and it gives them a false sense of security. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/02/health/surgeon-general-corona...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-surgeon-general-jer...
Are people on HN actually too stupid to learn how to properly wear a mask in 8 months time? I don't believe that. I think that each of us is smart enough to do that research and train ourselves.