Advice on mask-wearing to protect against Covid-19

Interesting illustration that as long as Sarah Bosely is in charge of health reporting the Guardian will fail to provide any useful coverage. She misses thewholepoint in the title

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/14/should-everyone-be-wearing-face-masks

 

Haven't read it all but this looks perfectly reasonable:
"It is accepted that they can block the transmission to other people. Given that many people with Covid-19 do not show any symptoms for the first days after they are infected, masks clearly have a potential role to play if everyone wears them."

But yes, the sub title:
"There is no robust evidence that ordinary masks stop wearers getting infected but some experts say they could make a big difference".
is not consistent with the reasonable advice "that they can block the transmission to other people".

 

Thank you for the replies and videos!

Here's one another sweet person shared with me tooo.

All you need is a T-shirt to make this mask. No scissors or anything else needed.

Can always add other layers of cloth or other suggested things around your nose and mouth to make it a thicker filter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ifK9lqNPVA

 

The gross incompetence of Public Health England was revealed last night on Channel 4 news. They showed the following extract from the PHE document entitled “Guidance for social or community and residential settings on Covid-19” (published 25 Feb 2020)

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...al-settings-on-covid-19#guidance-on-facemasks

Who writes these Public Health England documents? The UK is now facing a major epidemic of Covid-19 in care homes (less than 3 weeks after this PHE document was published). Unsurprisingly the document has now been withdrawn.

 

Heard on the news yesterday that (UK) passport control staff at airports etc will not be wearing masks as 'it would give the wrong impression'.

 

As far as I can see, the evidence on how well home made masks protect the wearer from viruses appears to be inconclusive. It’s still possible that a well fitting home-made mask which is made from material which filters as well (or nearly as well) as a respirator mask, might offer offer a very good degree of protection for the wearer. So I think it might be inaccurate to suggest that masks cannot act as PPE when the evidence is not yet clear?

 

I agree that they may protective wearer a bit but the argument for wearing them is to protect others. That argument seems me to be cast-iron so the PPE side is a red herring - even if a bonus. The red herring is that ordinary people wearing masks deprives care and health workers of masks. But we are talking about two completely different sorts of masks doing different jobs. Masks in hospitals have to be disposable because of the high chance of cross contamination but masks for people to wear in public places do not.

 

However, if you want people in the general population to wear washable masks then the personal protection angle is most likely to encourage them to do so.

This is true even if the protection offered is minimal compared to the “other person” protection effect.

I have been self isolated for weeks now. Yet I will still consider mask wearing when I go out again.

I won’t deny my motivation will be the slightly better self protection my mask will offer me, compared to being bare faced!

Of course I would also want to protect others, but on that first trip out, when I can be reasonably confident I’m not infected, I will still want to wear a mask. So from this, I can deduce that my motivation to mask wear will be largely self protection.

I doubt I’d be alone in this sort of thinking.

Do we honestly KNOW that cloth masks offer the wearer NO protection? I don’t think we can say that.

Sure we know the protection is less than offered by medical PPE but I don’t think we can say cloth masks offer zero protection.

Just my thoughts. xx

 

I am not sure that anyone has said that homemade masks offer the wearer no protection. Although I agree that the 'advisers' seem to think because it is not 100% there is no point.

I suspect they offer quite a lot of protection but like Ian Lipkin my guess is that at least half of transmission is through touching surfaces and then touching your face.

I agree it is highly likely that protecting oneself would be a stronger motivator.I would like to see that taken out of the equation by making mask wearing compulsory. It is compulsory for surgeons doing operations, so why not for all of us at the moment?

 

Agree 100%

 

I wouldn't underestimate people's wish to help and to do right by others. I think we're seeing huge amounts of that. I wonder if the assumption that everyone is selfish is one of the reasons that the UK govt at least has not yet proposed mask-wearing, and I think it's a false assumption. But:

I completely agree.

 

I agree. The problem we have seems to be mostly that the government is being advised to treat people like children and assume that they are as self-centred as they are. We cannot tell who is doing that advising because unlike the lab science team the behavioural team does not have names posted on the government site.

 

I think unless people are required to wear masks they will make judgements about their own state, and if they reach the conclusion they are not infected, then they won’t believe they need to wear a mask.

If only those who think they need to wear masks do so, then it will effectively mark them as “unclean” meaning others will accuse them of leaving the house when they are ill. So no one will want to wear a mask.

This means that either TPTB have to enforce mask wearing (with a strong message of mutual protection) or they need to allow some message of “mask wearing for self protection” to enter the conversation.

 

Within hours of posting this, I have now learnt that there has been an outbreak of Covid-19 in my dear 94 year old Gran’s care home and she herself has become infected. She is now being treated in hospital but we have been advised that there is no chance of her coming through.

I think that the problem in UK care homes might be far worse than we are hearing about. And yet still nothing seems to be being done to prevent further spread of Covid-19 within care homes...

 

I am so sorry about your grandma @JaneL
Such a sad and awful situation. Wish things could be so different. I’m thinking of you.
*hugs*

 

Thank you so much @lunarainbows xx

 

Germany seems to be doing ok without behavioural scientists as far as I am aware. The population is just told what the situation is, what the inconveniences will be, what the reasons are, and people seem to largely accept it, follow the rules, and give the coalition government an 80% + approval rating for the way things are being handled. The doubling rate is over 25 days now, and the number of people an ill person infects is now 1.0. On the news tonight it was explained very clearly how if it was 1.2 the health service would be overwhelmed in a matter of months. Not everything's perfect and there are differences of opinion about the details of course, but I haven't seen behavioural science being mentioned, or concerns about "how the public would react ..." etc. Just tell 'em, they'll cope with it.

 

I suspect outcomes in countries with behavioural scientists or similar influencing decisions are going to be worse than those without.

 

I'm so sorry to hear about your grandmother. The virus in Canada has spread like "wildfire" in care homes, almost half the deaths are in long term care homes. The systemic problem rooted in care homes goes back before the pandemic, no inspections, short staffed etc, it was just a matter of time.