SciTechDaily reports on a study which found something that should have been obvious—wearing masks alone is not enough to prevent contracting COVID-19:
Simply wearing a mask may not be enough to prevent the spread of COVID-19 without social distancing.
In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, researchers tested how five different types of mask materials impacted the spread of droplets that carry the coronavirus when we cough or sneeze.
Every material tested dramatically reduced the number of droplets that were spread. But at distances of less than 6 feet, enough droplets to potentially cause illness still made it through several of the materials.
I don’t see this study as either discouraging or disproof of the efficacy of wearing facemasks so much as a confirmation of the Swiss Cheese Model I posted on earlier. It may add another wrinkle to that model: some mitigation measures are more effective than others.
I don’t believe that other than maintaining total isolation there’s any way to protect yourself perfectly from contracting any virus. I also speculate that the ways in which people change their behaviors when they wear facemasks could actually make them more vulnerable to contracting COVID-19 than if they weren’t wearing masks at all. As one commenter notably put it, they behave as if masks were forcefields. I limit the number of times I go to the grocery store (I do all the shopping for my wife and me) but when I do I always wear a fresh, snugly-fitting facemask and I do my best to maintain three meters from my fellow patrons to the best of my ability. Ten meters would be better but too impractical. It rankles me a bit that some people are simply unwilling to keep their distance.
If you can smell dinner cooking you have small particles of that dinner traveling up your nose.
If you smell that with a mask on, well….
Ran across something that may make us want to re-think vaccine distribution. What about the children?
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/531211-more-than-150-california-children-have-been-diagnosed-with-coronavirus
Uhh, I hope this wasn’t news to anyone. Wear your mask, distance, avoid indoors groups. (If I were in charge I would make it clear there is no need to wear a mask outside unless you are in a group. No need to wear in a car if you are alone.)
Steve
I believe it’s actually unsafe for the driver to wear a mask. It certainly would be for me—fogging.
My daughters paranoid roommate and her ultra paranoid (liberal) parents go to extreme measures to protect themselves. They are consumed by the issue. Batshit crazy consumed.
So naturally, my daughters roommate contracted the virus. And naturally, gave it to my much less consumed daughter.
My daughter is doing relatively fine, as one would expect for a healthy 22 year old. She is here with us. Quarantined in her room upstairs. We take her food and interact minimally. (Texting and phoning upstairs is somewhat bizarre). Will do so for the prescribed period.
The moral of the story? “Stopping the virus†is a pipe dream in all but the most draconian protocols. It’s a probability game you try to tilt using reasonable efforts. The politicians are truly evil with their save-my-political-ass behavior while Destroying peoples businesses and lives. And the vast majority will do just fine on their own.
Ive never seen in my lifetime a more bizarre public policy response. Science my ass. Pure politics.
The argument you use with respect is an emotional one and is simply virtue signalling. There is now ample evidence with scientific studies that masks, social distancing and lockdowns have no effect. I will link you to the study – Xiao J, Shiu E, Gao H, et al. Nonpharmaceutical Measures for Pandemic Influenza in Nonhealthcare Settings—Personal Protective and Environmental Measures. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2020;26(5):967-975. doi:10.3201/eid2605.190994.
If you are sick by all means isolate yourself however becasue you have chosen to live in fear of something that you have a 99.96% of surviving against does not mean everyone else should be doing as you do.
It must remain a freedom of choice. The issue is not everyone’s lives are equally at risk, but everyone’s liberties are being equally denied. That is wrong.
That study did not find what you think it does. It did not find that facemasks have NO effect. It found that they have limited effectiveness, a point I have been making here for some time. The same is true of social distancing. It, too, has a marginal effect. The “Swiss Cheese Model” alluded to above proposes that if you combine a number of different mitigation strategies, each of which has a marginal effect, the net result will be a greater marginal effect. I think that’s reasonable.
That’s not “virtue-signalling”. Virtue-signalling is when the ONLY effect of something that is otherwise neutral or even counter-productive is to show how conformant you are to some social norm. When the measure is innocuous, there’s nothing wrong with virtue-signalling. Human beings are social creatures.
I agree with you that many of the policies put in place by state and local political leaders have been reckless and counter-productive. Fine-tuning is called for rather than painting with as broad a brush as possible.
There are many papers that show masks are effective, but if you want to believe they dont work the one above is the one to cite, especially when dealing with people who have medical expertise or experience interpreting studies. The paper purports to show that there is nothing you can do that makes a difference when it comes to the flu. (Note this is not Covid.) However, if you actually read the individual studies you find this very flawed.
Just to concentrate on masks, the author acknowledges that most of the studies were underpowered because they were too small, but she includes them anyway. Two of the studies were of university students, not exactly the group where you would expect compliance and the others were studies done at home. While we do suggest that if people have Covid that they try to isolate from family, wear masks, etc, we know there is a good chance that nothing will work. Too much virus load for too long, or just a moment of two of forgetting is too lily at home. Masks are what you wear to keep it from getting into the home, not for stopping spread once it gets here.
I really cant figure out why they wrote this study or why it was published. I ran it past our ID folks and my ICU guys. We think it was probably written with the hope that it would lead to funding for studies that would be done in large enough numbers and on the right population to be useful.
Of course you can see Drew’s comment for what usually passes for evidence with conservatives. “I know someone….”
Steve