Advice on mask-wearing to protect against Covid-19

This image is old, and the numbers will be different for the Omicron variant, but it does show that even one-way masking does do something to protect the mask wearer.

N95 masks >> surgical masks >> cloth masks



Sorry, don't have the URL for the article this chart is from. I just did a screen shot of the chart. I have no data on the study or experiment that led to these numbers.

 

I cant see me ever going in a busy place without an N95 on, for the forseeable future. I dont find them at all troublesome now i found ones that really comfy, so i cant see the point in not weraing it.

 

NIH study on masks, released today (March 10):

Mandatory masking in schools reduced COVID-19 cases during Delta surge

 

Last week my dentist told me to keep wearing a mask.

 

Same here. I went to do my weekly shopping and I was almost the only one with a mask though, there were only 1-2 others.

My sister and her husband have changed their views on covid now and say it is not going away and they cannot live like this and want to enjoy life, so are taking these things less seriously. Well, as a result my sister got a respiratory infection straight away. She said she didn't have covid symptoms, but I checked the Zoe App and it looked like very typical omicron symptoms. She wouldn't test herself though because she says she won't be able to get the 4th vaccine for a while if the test is positive. To be honest, I even got into a fight with her because I'm very worried that she may end up like me, with ME/CFS. If it indeed has genetic components, she should be extra careful. She says she is willing to take that risk but I know she has no idea what she is talking about and doesn't really understand how bad it is to live with this. Anyway, I have to be very careful about meeting her now, for the sake of my own health.

 

"Some hospitals ask patients, visitors to remove N95s, citing CDC"



https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/16/hospital-mask-cdc-covid-00017556

 

Its absurd @ahimsa & it has been going on a good while. see the thread i started about it here Members only - Bizarre mask policy at dentist & vaccination centre | Science for ME (s4me.info)

I have developed a tactic against the stupidity which avoids an argument that i got no energy for. I go in with an over ear N95 on (a covaflu one) covered with a surgical one. The straps almost cover each other so unless you up close its not obvious you got another on underneath.

When they ask me to swap my mask i say "certainly", turn my head away & just remove the surgical one & put theirs on. I then ostentatiously throw the surgical one i just took off away. The mask 'police' are in my experience utterly dim. It is ludicrous to ask a person to remove a mask that protects everyone to a high degree to one that does hardly anything. But they wont have it.

 

My dentist has sent an email saying that full covid precautions are being maintained for the time being. That means waiting outside until shown in when temperature is taken and sanitiser provided; hands to be washed with soap and water on entering treatment room. Masks to be worn of course.

 

Moved from the PACE thread

Loosely related to PACE, but it seems that the use of very poor methodology is definitely a much wider problem than our BPS overlords, it's all over evidence-based medicine. Canadian researchers did a randomized trial of mask-wearing where basically everyone crossed back-and-forth between multiple arms, reminiscent of how in PACE many in control arms ended up doing either or both CBT and GET, sometimes on their own, so that the results are completely uninterpretable.

Not that doing a randomized trial of mask-wearing, or of anything frankly, is of any value in itself, but it shows a deep undercurrent of blatant scientific illiteracy in medicine, how cherry-picking is fine as long as everyone is doing it in a way that aligns with popular expectations. This is what constantly degrading standards leads to, and what makes EBM completely unusable in real life.

 

CDC encourages people to wear masks to help prevent spread of Covid, flu and RSV over the holidays

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/05/cdc...masks-to-prevent-spread-of-covid-flu-rsv.html

I'm glad the head of the CDC is finally encouraging mask wearing but I wonder who will listen.

After losing so much credibility with past comments/actions (comparing masks to the "scarlet letter", creating COVID-19 "community level" maps that downplay the risk of infection) it's going to take a lot to win back trust.

EDIT: I meant to add that masking should be recommended BEFORE hospitals are full, not after. But I guess this is better than nothing.

 

They need to mandate masks. It makes my blood boil when I see 'encourage' and 'strongly recommending" masks. This will not encourage masks, people who don't want to wear them won't.

So now we are at great going lets do nothing while the Children Hospital of Eastern Ontario has called in the Red Cross to help. Unbelievable.

 

Few people are masking where I live. Everywhere I go, people are sneezing and coughing, often without using the crook of their elbows to contain at least some of the aerosols. It makes me glad to be wearing a mask even if I'm the only one.

 

Heh, a rare moment where you can cut the CDC some slack. The CDC cannot mandate masks, or anything like that. They can only advise the politicians who make the decision, and this is a political hot potato that no one wants to touch.

It's pretty similar to the WHO, most of those organizations are only advisory, any "mandates" they put out are not theirs, they have no such authority without the full cooperation of local authorities to actually enforce anything.

The big problem is when agencies shy away from even the bare minimum, like how most of them still largely avoid saying that it's airborne. Now that's bad. As is their inability to do their job about Long Covid so they can properly advise about it. That's on them. But they have no real powers to "mandate" anything that cannot be countermanded by whoever is in charge. This is executive power, and it can often be overruled at the regional/state level.

 

Someone recently told me that the evidence shows that masks don't protect the wearer against viruses (including Covid) because the viral particles are too small to be stopped, and that some meta-analyses show that this is true even of N95 ones.

A quick Google search found the usual Internet whirlpool of confusion concerning the evidence on masks and Covid. I was struck by being unable to find any authoritative, government-level body that has given a recent (last few months) statement on the evidence-based opinion on masks. Even if there have been no recent studies, IMO they should still be issuing such statements so that people can be confident that their position on the science is current, and they should be fully referencing their statements. This seems a terrible failure of comms.

I don't have time to do a PhD in this (and neither, surely, does the rest of the public), but would like to know if I'm getting false assurance from my mask (or conversely, if it's giving me enough protection to enable me to spend time with people in real life again).

Is there really no such summary?

If not, how can ordinary people come to an evidence-based view?

 

As see it the problem is that the experiment you need to do to prove anything cannot be done. Much as the experiment you need to do to show that the tides are due to the moon cannot be done. You would need a huge controlled trial of wearing and not wearing, foolproof to all the possible confounders. It will never be done.

So we have to accept in this sort of situation that practice should follow what is reasonably likely to be true on grounds of circumstantial evidence from situations where you can control things.

My own interpretation is that wearing a mask is unlikely to provide anything like complete protection, simply because we pick up viruses all sorts of ways and virus can survive on surfaces for hours at least. But a mask is likely to be of some use at least if you are in a public space with people coughing out Covid - which they are in most public spaces at present. The Covid cough is easily recognised - short and sharp.

I also think if people are wearing masks it is a useful jog to everyone to be a bit more careful. Quite a lot of people in Chile (where I have just been) wear masks. Chile and Peru have had very high mortality rates from Covid and I think the message has sunk in hard there.