Anything that is 30-40% effective would change the R0 substantially, would it not? This study is in no way surprising, other than hammering home the idea the lack of N95 would be devastating in an actual health care environment, and perhaps that people should seek out something better than single layer cloth. But yet, masks don’t provide total safety, it’s about changing the math...
It all depends on what channel you watched it on. I saw video where upwards of 50% were mask-less, shoulder to shoulder, screaming their heads off for hours. Droplets flying all over the place...
What is confusing about this? It says the exact same thing that has been repeated since the beginning. Wearing a mask less than an N95 doesn't protect the wearer from covid. By the time the virus reaches you it is too small to be stopped by a cloth mask. But when it is leaving your mouth and nose it is attached to a water droplet that is large enough to be stopped by a cloth mask. My mask protects you. Your mask protects me. Love your neighbor, wear a mask.
I didn't watch it on FoxNews, so I probably missed what you saw. I saw plenty of masks on CNN. Of course the masks could have been digitally put on protesters' faces.
Cloth masks will be ineffective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, whether worn as source control or as personal protective equipment (PPE And all the viruses not attached to water droplets(droplet transmission) float out and about and through cloth masks and surgical masks. I recall multiple arguments here about it being airbourne vs droplet transmission where I tried to explain the difference and was ripped by some telling me oh no its airbourne and just floats around. Masks less than N95 don't stop it from transmitting while airbourne. The biggest benefit masks do is to keep you from touching your face while your dirty hands are contaminated.
NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL of MEDICINE.... "We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic." "What is clear, however, is that universal masking alone is not a panacea. A mask will not protect providers caring for a patient with active Covid-19 if it’s not accompanied by meticulous hand hygiene, eye protection, gloves, and a gown. A mask alone will not prevent health care workers with early Covid-19 from contaminating their hands and spreading the virus to patients and colleagues. Focusing on universal masking alone may, paradoxically, lead to more transmission of Covid-19 if it diverts attention from implementing more fundamental infection-control measures" https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372
That was based on what we knew in March. We know more now. You are free to ignore the progress of science and our increased understanding of how this works. For everyone else, here is a study showing the mechanics of how cloth masks help stop the spread in laboratory settings, and here is a study showing that cloth masks helped stop the spread in real-world settings.
Yes, we already know that wearing a cloth mask doesn't protect the wearer. As I said earlier, you may recall, wearing a mask doesn't protect the wearer from covid, it protects those around the wearer from covid. My mask protects you, your mask protects me. Love your neighbor, wear a mask.
I don't know what Ty Google is. But you don't see any masks in those pictures? There certainly aren't enough. And in any case, are the protesters who aren't wearing masks being stupid just like Herman Cain? Yes. I believe that was your point, right?
The protests were outdoors. Obviously being outdoors helps, or why would the Repubs now be planning on moving much of their convention outdoors?
Then simply quote the NEJM. But nothing there either is outside of what we already know. Breathing itself take several minutes exposure, masks are more for the other person not you, and it’s coughing and sneezing which are the quick transmission methods (which aren’t addressed directly in the article But what the masks are primarily supposed to help for every day folks Along with stopping you from touching parts of your face). For a worker at a grocery store dealing with hundreds of people and Their air all day every day, it might not protect you but could certainly help them, which is why it’s a good thing. To the larger point, I don’t think anyone has claimed they are the end all be all, but it is also fairly well agreed that they lower risk, by how much is a fair question to discuss. There’s a big difference between a 5% reduction and 50% for instance. But keep in mind, again hypothetically, if masks reduced transmission by 50 percent and the R0 was under 2, it would eventually kill the spread of the virus. It doesn’t need to be close to 100 percent effective to have a significant impact.
A useful tool on the NEJM website is that they list articles that cite the article you are reading. Here is an article that cites the above work and follows up on the speculation presented with actual data. Their findings, based on actual data (unlike the above article) were that universal mask usage in a health care setting was associated with a lower rate of covid infections among health care workers in that setting.
True, I hadn't considered that. Outdoors at least helps. I hadn't heard about the Republicans planning to move their convention outdoors. In Jacksonville?
Yes, they are talking about moving much of it outdoors. Good luck with that in the August heat, though it's better than being crammed indoors with a bunch of rightwing anti-maskers.
Yeah that's not gonna go very well for fat people in suits (hell even the skinnier ones will be dying).
