1042 replies to this topic

[Hip]

But surely you've left out one group in your test ..... those that believe that masks do work.  Shouldn't we have a group of pro mask advocates willing to get in room with covid positive patients?  

 

Absolutely. I would be happy to enter a room with a person with COVID provided I were given a N95 respirator, and were given eye protection. If it is good enough for frontline health-workers tending sick COVID patients all day, it is good enough for me. I am pretty confident that I would not catch coronavirus while donning this protection. 

 

 

Eye protection would be good to test under the proposed experimental setup. It would be good to measure what extra protection eye covering gives when worn with a mask. We could have some people just wearing masks, and others wearing masks and eye protection.

Edited by Hip, 14 May 2021 - 12:10 AM.

[Mind]

In order to get definitive data on the efficacy of mask wearing, why don't we enlist the paid help of lots of COVID deniers and people who think COVID is over-exaggerated. We can place all these deniers in a series of rooms, and then introduce some individuals with a current active coronavirus infection and cough.

 

We can get third of the COVID deniers to wear no mask, another third to wear a standard surgical mask, and the final third to wear N95 or FFP2 respiratory masks. 

 

Then we can see who caught coronavirus in this experiment, and this should help determine the relative efficacy of these two types of mask, compared to wearing no mask.

 

 

 

The COVID deniers should not mind, as they don't even believe COVID is real. And they will get paid for their help in this trial. 

 

Would you be willing to participate in such a trial, Mind? Your view is that the seriousness of COVID is over-exaggerated, and that it is not a problem for young people. So I would guess you would not mind being a guinea pig in such a trial.

 

 

The only problem is that scientific ethics committees may consider this trial ethically suspect; however, even if someone in the trial catches COVID and dies, the data obtained will probably save many more lives in the long run. So let's make use of all these COVID deniers. At least then these deniers will be doing something of value for humanity, in spite of their dubious opinions.

 

You have clearly not read anything I have posted in this thread.

 

Masks have been proven to work reasonably well in some environments with trained personnel and high quality equipment. N95 and higher grade masks with other protection are better than "face-coverings" or surgical masks.

 

Who disputes this? Not me.

 

General face-coverings do not work very well as a population-wide pandemic response, as has been proven by multiple RCTs and observational studies over the last 100 years, and has been proven once again during this pandemic.

 

Based upon dozens of studies, out-patient therapeutics (such as Ivermectin) would be a much more powerful and effective option for this pandemic. In addition, regional travel blocks and heavier focus upon protecting the elderly, would have made this whole episode more easily manageable. Instead we got masks - which were mostly a failure once again.

[Hip]

General face-coverings do not work very well as a population-wide pandemic response, as has been proven by multiple RCTs and observational studies over the last 100 years, and has been proven once again during this pandemic.

 

I have not seen any convincing proof that masks do not work in the general population during pandemics; but I have seen studies which suggest they do work.

 

You cannot rely on population-wide studies on masks during this pandemic, as there are too many confounding factors, like new variants emerging, seasonality, and the fact that people engage in multiple controlling measures at the same time, from hand washing to social distancing. 

 

So no reliable way to tease out the mask effect in the general population. So you have to use controlled situations to examine the efficacy of masks.

 

 

Face covering are not considered as effective as masks, which is why the former have recently been banned in France; you must now wear a mask. Face coverings were a stopgap solution when masks were in short supply, at the beginning of the pandemic.

[Florin]

The bottomline that everyone should be able to agree on is that for any pandemic, everyone should wear (as a recommendation, not a mandate) elastomeric P100s (or equivalent) and eye protection, not disposable N95s or any other kind of inferior face covering or mask.

[Danail Bulgaria]

The bottomline that everyone should be able to agree on is that for any pandemic, everyone should wear (as a recommendation, not a mandate) elastomeric P100s (or equivalent) and eye protection, not disposable N95s or any other kind of inferior face covering or mask.

 

I don't agree I wear "any other type of mask" and I have never been infected.
 

[Hip]

A third of N95 masks fail government tests, putting medics at risk

 

"One-third of supposedly highly protective N95 masks used by hospital and hotel quarantine staff exposed to COVID-positive patients have failed government testing, putting the frontline workers at risk of coronavirus infection."

[Mind]

No masks 2 months ago at Texas Ranger baseball game. Neither at the MMA event a little later at Arlington stadium with 73,000 people.

 

Both should have been "superspreader" events, according to the CDC, WHO, NIH, and other bureaucrats. Texas should be overwhelmed with death right now according to the CDC, WHO, etc. Texas hospitals should be way past the breaking point according to the CDC, WHO, etc...

 

It didn't happen. Just the opposite happened.

[Florin]

Masks aren't usually needed for outdoor activities. Aerosols can't accumulate outdoors, so it's very unlikely for transmission to occur.

[Mind]

Masks aren't usually needed for outdoor activities. Aerosols can't accumulate outdoors, so it's very unlikely for transmission to occur.

 

Arlington stadium is enclosed. Judging by the pictures, it should have been a "superspreader event". It wasn't. People were in very close contact at the baseball game as well.

[Florin]

The volume of air is so large that for practical purposes, it can be considered to be "outdoors." Any aerosols from superspreaders would be quickly diluted.

 

And if that's not enough, you should know that Texas (along with a lot of other states) has lots of people that are immune either by having been infected or being vaccinated.

Edited by Florin, 28 May 2021 - 08:07 PM.

[Mind]

The volume of air is so large that for practical purposes, it can be considered to be "outdoors." Any aerosols from superspreaders would be quickly diluted.

 

And if that's not enough, you should know that Texas (along with a lot of other states) has lots of people that are immune either by having been infected or being vaccinated.

 

You did look at the pictures, right? People packed in like sardines - no masks.

 

Here is a recent study of mask mandates and usage: https://www.medrxiv....21257385v1.full

 

No correlation between mask and non-mask states when it comes COVID spread.

 

This is similar to the previous uncontrolled CDC study (cited earlier in this thread) which showed that mask usage barely made even a minor dent in the spread of COVID in the US.

 

This is also in line with previous pandemic studies (cited earlier in this thread) over the last 100 years or so. As a population-wide pandemic response, masks are not very effective.

[Florin]

You did look at the pictures, right? People packed in like sardines - no masks.

 

You did read my reply, right?
 

Here is a recent study of mask mandates and usage: https://www.medrxiv....21257385v1.full
 
No correlation between mask and non-mask states when it comes COVID spread.

Yes, masks don't work so well for the more contagious variants that drove the fall/winter wave. This is obvious; you don't need any fancy studies to prove it.

But I'm more skeptical of this study's claims about the summer wave.
 

For the Summer wave, Northeast states were excluded because they deviated from other states with respect to covariation between normalized cases and growth. For the Fall-Winter wave, Hawaii was excluded because it deviated from other states with respect to covariation between normalized cases and growth. Infectious disease research commonly uses OLS [20, 21], with simple linear and simple ln-linear models reported in recent COVID-19 studies [22, 23]. We used ordinary least squares (OLS) for homoscedastic data and weighted least squares (WLS) for heteroscedastic data, as determined by the GraphPad Prism Test for Homoscedasticity. Regardless of statistical significance, R2 values denote coefficients of determination for lines of best fit with unconstrained slopes.

 

Is excluding the Northeast states valid? I don't have the expertise of a statistician, but it seems kind of suspicious.

Also, the summer wave happened mostly in the southern states which may have had less compliance regardless of mandates.

And another recent study (cited earlier in this thread) comes to the opposite conclusion when focusing on adherence, not just on mandates.

https://www.longecit...ndpost&p=905594
 

This is similar to the previous uncontrolled CDC study (cited earlier in this thread) which showed that mask usage barely made even a minor dent in the spread of COVID in the US.
 
This is also in line with previous pandemic studies (cited earlier in this thread) over the last 100 years or so. As a population-wide pandemic response, masks are not very effective.

Earlier in this thread we also discussed why those studies were of poor quality.

 

The bottom line for me hasn't changed: masks probably work for less contagious covid variants (spring wave, Asia versus the rest of the world) and respiratory viruses such as the 2020/2021's flu strains (which got wiped out) but don't work so well for the more contagious variants (the fall/winter wave).

Edited by Florin, 06 June 2021 - 02:32 AM.

[Hip]

Interesting article: How China crushed coronavirus. 
 

In China, a monumental effort by ordinary people and a policy of "infected until proven healthy" have kept new Covid-19 cases at exceptionally low levels.

 

People returning from high-risk countries such as the UK need to present a negative on both a nucleic acid and antibody test before boarding the plane, and they are tested again upon arrival. Each person flying into Shanghai has a group of three people assigned to them: a doctor, a policeman, and a neighbourhood committee member. Quarantine is mandatory – at home or in a hotel – and the quarantined are not allowed to venture outside. Those who choose home will find a device mounted on their front door. Whenever they open it, the doctor and the Party committee member’s phones receive an alert, and a call will come in to ask why they have opened the door.

China’s virus control effort was single-minded – the goal was always total elimination. Officials were fired for perceived dereliction of duty, or promoted for successfully controlling the virus. There was never large-scale debate on the efficacy of masks, or whether only vulnerable people should shelter, or whether there was a trade off between saving the economy and saving lives, or whether the cost was greater than the cure.

 

While many in the rest of the world believe that China’s fight against the virus has been dominated by high-tech surveillance, those within the country do not think so. In a videoed speech picked up by several news outlets, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences president Wang Chen said: “China’s epidemic prevention is about social organisation not technology,”

Edited by Hip, 09 June 2021 - 10:56 PM.

[Hebbeh]

https://www.msn.com/...reak/ar-AAKRR89

 

China Returns to Its Strict Covid Restrictions to Fight a New Outbreak

 

BEIJING — Neighborhoods under strict lockdown. Thousands quarantined. Millions tested in mere days. Overseas arrivals locked up for weeks and sometimes months.

 

China has followed variations of that formula for dealing with the coronavirus for more than a year — and a new outbreak suggests that they could be part of Chinese life for some time to come.

 

China appeared to get the coronavirus under control nearly a year ago. But hundreds of millions of Chinese people remain unvaccinated. New variants of the coronavirus have appeared, and questions remain about whether China’s self-made vaccines can stop them.

 

The latest cases have been found in Guangzhou, capital of the southern province of Guangdong. The authorities have blamed the Delta variant, which has caused widespread loss of life in India.

 

The city tested practically its entire population of 18.7 million between Sunday and Tuesday, some of them for the second time. It has also put neighborhoods with a total of more than 180,000 residents into total lockdowns, with practically no one allowed out except for medical testing.

 

The early infections appear to have jumped from person to person at a cluster of eateries. Each infected person has infected more other people than in any previous outbreak that China has confronted, Zhang Zhoubin, deputy director of the Guangzhou Center for Disease Control, said at a news conference.

 

 

 

[Florin]

PAPRs (the DIY kind for now) have the potential to be better than elastomeric respirators.

 

https://www.viralhelmets.com

 

 

[bladedmind]

I haven’t been a partisan in the mask wars.  I was regularly masked until recently, and wished that everyone would mask for the sake of the public good.  Also, I’m glad to live in a society where there are skeptics and rebels. 

 

In my own research, on a topic I don’t want to disclose in order to preserve anonymity, I found that across countries there is no necessary connection between legal mandate and behavioral change, especially outside the OECD in places where there can be no connection at all.  I haven’t paid attention to the mask literatures, but did notice that legal mandate was often chosen as the independent variable (cause). 

 

Here’s a new paper that instead uses mask-wearing as the independent variable, and claims to show a 20% median reduction in transmissibility ®; and that mask mandate itself has no effect.  I don’t have the training to confidently assess its quality, but from my limited knowledge it looks to be of high quality. 

 

Mass mask-wearing notably reduces COVID-19 transmission

 

Mask-wearing has been a controversial measure to control the COVID-19 pandemic. While masks are known to substantially reduce disease transmission in healthcare settings (Howard et al 2021), studies in community settings report inconsistent results (Brainard et al 2020). Investigating the inconsistency within epidemiological studies, we find that a commonly used proxy, government mask mandates, does not correlate with large increases in mask-wearing in our window of analysis. We thus analyse the effect of mask-wearing on transmission instead, drawing on several datasets covering 92 regions on 6 continents, including the largest survey of individual-level wearing behaviour (n=20 million) (Kreuter et al 2020). Using a hierarchical Bayesian model, we estimate the effect of both mask-wearing and mask-mandates on transmission by linking wearing levels (or mandates) to reported cases in each region, adjusting for mobility and non-pharmaceutical interventions. We assess the robustness of our results in 123 experiments across 22 sensitivity analyses. Across these analyses, we find that an entire population wearing masks in public leads to a median reduction in the reproduction number R of 25.8%, with 95% of the medians between 22.2% and 30.9%. In our window of analysis, the median reduction in $R$ associated with the wearing level observed in each region was 20.4% [2.0%, 23.3%]. We do not find evidence that mandating mask-wearing reduces transmission. Our results suggest that mask-wearing is strongly affected by factors other than mandates. We establish the effectiveness of mass mask-wearing, and highlight that wearing data, not mandate data, are necessary to infer this effect.

 

 

[bladedmind]

I sample the DRASTIC collaborative twitter threads for a few minutes each day (look for these handles on twitter https://drasticresearch.org/the-team/ , esp. Bostickson, Deigin).  There is at least one new, well-documented revelation per day.  And although I can’t offer evidence, I suspect that the accumulation of findings by DRASTIC over 17 months is what flipped public discourse.  The pace and weight of revelations are accelerating now and some major journalists are incentivized to dig hard.  If nothing gets in the way scandal will detonate. 

 

I think the only thing that would stand in the way is a kill message from the official intelligence investigation.   We don’t know why that investigation was announced.  It could have been alarm at Chinese deception, or it could have been alarm at increasing public evidence supporting lab-leak that implicates monied interests or biowarfare secrets.  The best way to kill it is a wet blanket:   “17 intelligence agencies determine that there will never be sufficient evidence to decide between the zoonotic and lab-leak hypotheses.”   If that were endlessly repeated in the media the controversy would die out.

[Mind]

In an admission that should surprise no one (based upon decades of prior research, evidence from past pandemics, common sense, and world-wide data from the current pandemic), general masking and face-coverings (paper and cloth - which almost everyone wears) do not prevent the spread of respiratory disease - as finally stated on TV by CNN's medical expert.

 

Apparently only 3-ply surgical masks or better work....but they don't in the REAL world where people have to eat, people have to drink, people have to breathe, people have to sleep, parents have to tend to their kids, adults have to tend to the elderly, workers sweat and clog their masks, EMTs have to rescue people, etc...

[Mind]

Now that health authorities around the world are finally admitting what was "common knowledge" and well-studied previous to 2020, that general masking and face covering are not effective in stopping the spread of respiratory disease, I have to give credit to Florin, who stated as such earlier in this thread. He was clear that regular masks were of no use and that if you wanted effective (and proven) protection, you would probably have to wear N100 masks with goggles, or a full respirator helmet. Unfortunately, this is not an option for most of the world. I still maintain that focused protection and early treatment are a better general approach than trying to turn the world/environment into a sterile level 5 clean room - which has been the primary approach by government bureaucracies over the last two years,

 

Excessive and abusive mask enforcement is making people more angry everyday.

[Mind]

The CDC continues to use unreliable data (they admit it is unreliable) to push mask mandates.

[Mind]

The "science" behind masking is becoming ever more incoherent as promoted by health bureaucracies.

 

About a dozen states in the U.S. have now dropped or are planning to drop all indoor mask mandates. They have picked various dates, seemingly randomly, from February to March. Because of the "science"? Various counties and local jurisdictions in the states will keep their strict mask mandates, contradicting their states. Because of the "science"?

 

I was surprised to find out that Washington State still has a universal OUTDOOR mask mandate that won't expire until February 28th. Hardly anyone still regards a an outdoor mask mandate as necessary, but apparently Washington State is following the "science".

 

Unfortunately in the U.S. if you point out the bizarre and sometimes unscientific nature of mask and COVID guidance, you are now a terrorist.

[Mind]

Two countries that have been lauded for their citizens being great and compliant in wearing masks - heralded as models for stopping the spread of COVID, now have some of the highest COVID spread in the world. Both South Korea (nearly 60,000 cases per day) and Japan (around 100,000 cases per day) have very high COVID injection rates as well.

 

CDC now thinking about loosening mask guidance. The masks were a poor choice as a pandemic response. As has been the case in past pandemics, general face-covering did barely anything except stunt the development of kids and caused a lot of them to commit suicide.

[geo12the]

https://www.scienced...20301093655.htm

[Mind]

https://www.scienced...20301093655.htm

 

Most times, a model is created to inform public policy makers. Then policies are developed to test whether or not the model is representative of real world situations.

 

We ran the real world test. General masking and face coverings did nothing to stop wave after wave after wave of COVID infections. Even in the countries that required respirators, COVID spread. For a multitude of reasons pointed out several times in this thread, the real world is not a lab with masked-mannequins, nor a computer model of virus spread.

[geo12the]

Most times, a model is created to inform public policy makers. Then policies are developed to test whether or not the model is representative of real world situations.

We ran the real world test. General masking and face coverings did nothing to stop wave after wave after wave of COVID infections. Even in the countries that required respirators, COVID spread. For a multitude of reasons pointed out several times in this thread, the real world is not a lab with masked-mannequins, nor a computer model of virus spread.

As bad as the pandemic was, without masking it would have been much worse and more people would have gotten sick and died. The only thing done wrong in my view is that the quality of the masks was not emphasized enough and also how you wear them-below the nose like many people wear them is useless.

[Mind]

 

 

As bad as the pandemic was, without masking it would have been much worse and more people would have gotten sick and died

 

There is no real world data to support this statement. Countries that had the highest mask usage (like South Korea), are experiencing a massive wave of COVID cases, deaths, and hospitalizations right now. Even in countries that mandated respirators there was wave after wave after wave of outbreaks.

 

We had high-quality studies, both observational and RCT prior to the pandemic, that indicated general masking of the public is not a useful pandemic response for aerosolized respiratory disease. I have never seen such rejection of science as I have seen in the last two years.

 

Meanwhile everyone in NYC can go without masking except for kids 4 and under....because of "the science". NYC is run by buffoons, what other explanation is there.

 

Throughout the whole forced mask-wearing which didn't stop the spread of COVID anywhere on the planet, the rich and political elite rarely wore masks, which underscores how much of a farce it was. Here is video of rich elites having a great party in California, while their serfs/servants are forced to wear masks.

 

https://nypost.com/2...osi-fundraiser/

 

Andrew Tate drops some bombs about the mask mandates. If you are rich and can fly on a private plane, no masks. No masks at the airport. No masks on the plane. No masks when you get off the plane. Flying coach, people were literally getting beaten and removed from flights if they didn't wear their mask properly or at the tight time.

 

https://twitter.com/...172944655073280

Edited by Mind, 09 March 2022 - 04:50 PM.

[Mind]

Austria to reimplement masking requirements even though masking just failed spectacularly a few weeks ago.

 

I am beginning to think that many public health leaders are clueless or misanthropes.

[Mind]

It is getting really weird in New York. 2 to 4 year-olds will be forced to continue wearing masks - even though no one else is forced to wear masks. Is there anywhere else in the nation or world that is still requiring 2 to 4 year-olds to wear masks?

[Florin]

There is no real world data to support this statement. Countries that had the highest mask usage (like South Korea), are experiencing a massive wave of COVID cases, deaths, and hospitalizations right now. Even in countries that mandated respirators there was wave after wave after wave of outbreaks.

 

No country has mandated respirator use.

 

Real world data is besides the point. If everyone was being gassed to death, don't you think it would be a good idea if they wore gas masks even though there's no real world data on civilian use of gas masks?

[Daniel Cooper]

No country has mandated respirator use.

 

Real world data is besides the point. If everyone was being gassed to death, don't you think it would be a good idea if they wore gas masks even though there's no real world data on civilian use of gas masks?

 

But people weren't being gassed to death. They were being potentially exposed to a virus with a very variable risk of serious illness and lethality. 

 

In older persons or those that were overweight or diabetic or had a few other comorbidities the risk was significant but nothing like "being gassed to death".  In younger healthier populations, the risk was quite a bit less.

 

This one size fits all of mandating mask or respirators makes no sense. A 12 year old kid has almost no risk from this virus. A healthy 30 year old has a very small risk. You act as if walking around all day wearing a full on respirator is a zero cost proposition. I'll make a suggestion that I've made before - get your respirator, wear it around for 8 hours a day, interact with people, attempt to have conversations, go about your daily business, etc. Do this for a few weeks then come back and tell me if you feel that this is a burden that should be forced on people regardless of their likely risk.

Edited by Daniel Cooper, 04 April 2022 - 06:23 PM.