Advice on mask-wearing to protect against Covid-19

Why is the WHO still saying masks aren’t required?
In the UK on news and TV they seem to be using that as one of their reasons for not changing their position on masks and not making them compulsory.

 

Wow - interview on BBC News right now with Prof Robert West.

People who wear masks are insecure and may do it as they are needing a sense of security, BBC person comes back with 'a false sense of security'.

Walking along the street wearing a mask is 'pointless' - West.

The BBC really is backing up the official line, that no one should ever wear a mask, unless they are a medical person, dealing with a patient, who has an active and proven covid-19 infection.

 

I looked up Prof Robert West. He is a professor of Health Psychology and director of tobacco studies, in the behavioural science and health institute at UCL. Why is someone who specialises in behavioural science more likely to have the answer on this, than, say, all the scientists that have so far spoken about the effectiveness of masks, or even that scientist that Peston interviewed a while ago who had just led the international review on masks?

Not to mention all the countries that are using masks, and the fact that with COVID-19 there is an asymptomatic phase where you’ll be spreading it, and also those who don’t realise they have COVID-19. At the moment even those with symptoms aren’t wearing masks! The BBC really lives in its own bubble.

 

Possibly because the purpose of the 'interview' seemed to be to give the impression that 'experts' thought that people who wear masks in public were pathetic, deluded and insecure weirdos (it was very poorly done but the BBC interviewer was fully complicite) - with the apparent objective of not so subtly leaving the impression that if you don't want to look like a weirdo then don;t wear a mask.

A behavioural 'scientist' seems ideal for that job, much better suited than say, an expert on masks.

 

This is an interesting mask related story from NPR (photo examples in the story).....

"Researchers at Northeastern University have found that adding an outer layer made from nylon stockings to a homemade face covering can boost its ability to filter out small particles in the air by creating a tighter seal between the mask and the wearer's face. In some cases, that extra nylon layer helped homemade cloth masks match or exceed the filtering capability of medical-grade surgical masks."

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsa...=npr&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com

 

Looks like the U.K. still won’t recommend face masks. Deputy political editor at Sky news

https://twitter.com/user/status/1255174637958443008


https://twitter.com/user/status/1255174996047036416

 

And any small effect on R0 can have a huge impact we are told.
Our curve is not really going down in earnest. But I have a feeling common sense amongst the public might get it moving with a little face wear.

 

Scotland have recommended face masks be worn in shops.
Also face masks are going to be compulsory in Germany for shops and transport, and also compulsory in France for public transport and schools.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52457324
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52439926
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52459030

Will be harder for the U.K. to justify when other countries in Europe do it.

Although I’m not sure why just public transport and shops (and schools in some places) - there’s a worry that people will just pull them down elsewhere. What about in hospitals and clinics? What about just passing people by - if they cough when infectious they can still pass it on. I don’t see why they’re not just recommended or mandatory as a rule, outside the home.

 

In Scotland, the emphasis is on cloth face coverings, not face masks. The use of language is trivial but it gets rid of the argument that it will take protective equipment from those who need it so it is worth making the distinction all the time.

When the lockdown begins to be relaxed the biggest advantage to masks may be to remind people that things are not going back to normal but are just the same as they were when the lockdown started just hospitals are more prepared.

 

Here they also use the term "mouth and nose protection/covering". Which also had legal implications because tailors that switched from making clothes to sewing those "coverings" got sued when they called them "masks". A "mask" would implicate a medical use/egilibility and was therefore deemed misleading.

 

That's interesting. What word was it exactly - "Mundschutz"? If so I can see why that would be misleading, because it contains "Schutz" - protection, which is making a claim.

 

Appearently not only "mask" (=Maske) but even "protection" (=Schutz) is critical according to this source (translation with deepl).

"It becomes problematic, however, if the cloths are offered as "face mask" or "breathing mask". Articles with this designation are formally and legally subject to the Medical Devices Act.

[...]

Strictly speaking, the sale of homemade and untested "mouth and nose protectors" is a false sense of security. Furthermore, from a formal legal point of view, such an offer is misleading. Because the name suggests that it is a medical product. However, a simple fabric mask does not meet the requirements for such articles."

I've heard many politicians and virologists use the term "Mundschutz" (=mouth protection) though.

The legally safest term seems to be "Behelfs-Mund-Nasen-Maske" - I don't even know how to translate that..it's a German Wortungetüm (=word monster)

 

This seems very sensible.

However, the word “mask” should not, in English at least, mean anything other than something that covers the face. Think of Halloween masks, and the old masked balls! Yet I can also see the logic of dropping the word mask (in reference to what the general public should wear) at this time, and talking about cloth face covers, or mouth&nose covers instead.

Interesting.

 

Thank you, I'm going to use that

 

BBC Radio 4 (the briefing room - easing the lockdown) looked at Denmark(R0 "O,6"?) and the UK (R0 "O,9"?) [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hgjf]

To some people the difference between 0.6 and 0.9 is "small". However, the program highlighted that at 0.9 you don't really have options to ease the lockdown at 0.6 you do.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1255902532188151808

 

Possibly, just possibly;

Out of hundreds of thousands of research papers published in the last few years, half a dozen were about masks, almost all saying they could be very 'helpful' - a statistically insignificant evidence base.

If you then narrow that down to those that mentioned covid-19 then you end up, probably, with none.

(They literally said this in one of the covid daily briefings - that there was no research that proved masks were helpful in preventing covid-19 transmission, so they couldn't recommend them to the public)

So very weak evidence.

Despite it being self evident that they may be 'helpful' there is little to no actual evidence, for much the same reason as there is probably little published scientific papers that provide evidence that water is wet.

 

By my calculation with 0.9 recession of cases would take five times as long as 0.6. Fifteen months instead of three months, say.

 

Since wearing masks seems to be harmless one might ask how strong the evidence is that people wearing masks can infect others. I rather suspect the evidence is a bit weak for that too. How many reliably documented cases of infection by someone wearing a mask are there? Since wearing a mask is the obvious thing to do surely what matters is that the evidence for not doing so is weak.

 

Saw this over on Facebook