Another really good and credible thread on how to prevent covid transmission

[Z6IIAB]

And why masks are important and help protect your health and other's as well:

https://twitter.com/jljcolorado/status/ ... 76420?s=20

Science divulgators using social media are pivotal to help people undo their prejudices against mask use.

[RikkiTikkiTavi]

Great source of info. Thanks for providing it.

I wear a mask anytime I am in an enclosed space where people gather that is not my home. I made the effort to find a type of mask that fit me well. The exterior is cloth with a compartment for a filter. I fitted an N59 mask within the compartment and made sure the mask stays on my nose - does not have gaps and reacts when I breathe so I know it is doing its job.

Once I have it on I barely notice it because I have conditioned myself to wearing this simple and effective self defense.

We wear seatbelts in cars. We wear shoes on our feet. We (hopefully) use hearing protection when exposed to loud noises. We (hopefully) thoroughly wash our hands multiple times a day. All of these things are a bit bothersome physically but we can adapt to them. Masks are a part of healthy living in the Covid world.

[grabachair]

I must live in a different world from y'all - I haven't worn a mask in months, and it would be passing strange to see anyone wear one out and about. I see a few each week, but that's about it. I live in a rather progressive town, but maybe it's different in the Midwest?

[Z6IIAB]

I must live in a different world from y'all - I haven't worn a mask in months, and it would be passing strange to see anyone wear one out and about. I see a few each week, but that's about it. I live in a rather progressive town, but maybe it's different in the Midwest?

you're probably doing it wrong, and so are those people around you. yeah, there's people acting like you, I've seen them everyday. this is why covid keeps spreading and in some places cases are rising. please, at least change your behaviour. have you read the thread? are you well-informed? doesn't look so. also, midwest, USA? because I don't live there. but yeah, we've got idiots in my country too, plenty of them.

[grabachair]

We have high rates of vaccination or natural immunity, at least in my area. Daily deaths for my state are around 20 - far less than heart disease, cancer, auto accidents, lots of stuff. Masks seem to help with some of the spread (though the most comprehensive study, the one out of India, showed zero effect for people under 30 and almost no effect under 60) but given the new drugs take hospitalization to very low and death risk down to almost zero, we've chosen to go back to something like normal.

We can't go on forever in fear of covid, any more than we could live in fear of nuclear war. It's moved from pandemic to 'background evils of the world' and it's not going away any time soon, so I think a lot of people have just accepted it. That 1000% sucks, but we've just accepted that life is risk, and all those awful things like cancer and drowning and even the flu have a new player on their team.

[Z6IIAB]

Yep, ill informed.

[RikkiTikkiTavi]

So I will just leave this article right here...

Social distancing is pointless without a mask, Cambridge University study suggests
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/arti ... ience.html

Within that article is this:

There has been fierce scientific debate about how well masks work at reducing Covid transmission, despite nearly every country in the world mandating or encouraging their use.

Lab tests and observational studies have shown masks can block infected people from exhaling up to 80 per cent of the virus into the air and also protect wearers from inhaling up to 50 per cent of the particles...

Any protection offered can also depend on the type of mask worn, with medical-grade coverings much better than cloth or surgical masks, as well as if someone wears them correctly.

So, sure you can find studies that disagree about benefits of masks - but most of that difference is due to user error in wearing the mask.

I equate the 'just accept Covid deaths' as very similar to 'just accept STDs'. In the Covid case, people refuse to wear masks, in the STD case people refuse to wear condoms. In both the mask and the condom we can say they are 'unnatural' and they don't feel as good as not wearing them. But in both cases they protect both the person wearing them and the people they are in contact with.

[grabachair]

The UK study is a computer simulation. For actual data, see the study out of India that looked at hundreds of thousands of people. They found that for those under 60, mask effects were not significant.

[grabachair]

Celina, I want to encourage you to get outside your normal news sources at least once a week. It can really help with knee-jerk reactions to people and ideas you disagree with.

Here is my daily set:
Huffpo
CNN
Fox
Bongino Report

Plus some geek news sites. Gives you a good spread and helps you see others and their ideas in a more nuanced way.

[RikkiTikkiTavi]

The UK study is a computer simulation. For actual data, see the study out of India that looked at hundreds of thousands of people. They found that for those under 60, mask effects were not significant.

You are no doubt referring to this study:
https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/de ... 08.pdf.pdf

And it shows: "The intervention reduced symptomatic seroprevalence (adjusted prevalence ratio (aPR) = 0.91 [0.82, 1.00]), especially among adults 60+ years in villages where surgical masks were distributed (aPR = 0.65 [0.45, 0.85]).
Mask distribution and promotion was a scalable and effective method to reduce symptomatic
SARS-CoV-2 infections.

What they found is that masks were effective and especially among adults 60+ years.

Furthermore, from that study

We designed our trial to encourage universal mask-wearing at the community level, rather
than mask-wearing among only those with symptoms. We encouraged even healthy individuals to
wear masks since a substantial share of COVID-19 transmission stems from asymptomatic or pre-
symptomatic individuals (14), and masks may protect healthy wearers by reducing the inhalation
of aerosols or droplets (15–17).

We find clear evidence that surgical masks lead to a relative reduction in symptomatic seroprevalence of 11.1%...

11% is absolutely significant.

In surgical mask villages, we observe a 22.8% decline in symptomatic seroprevalence among individuals aged 50-60...

22.8% is incredibly significant

Go ahead and increase your risk by not wearing a mask. It is your choice, but don't kid yourself that you are not having a potential negative effect on yourself and potentially those around you.

Don't diminish the importance of mask wearing by misrepresenting what this study that you were touting said. It absolutely promoted the use of masks - especially surgical masks versus cloth masks. Your opinion that masks were not helpful is only that. The study does not agree with you.

[grabachair]

Sorry, I misspoke- those over 50, not those over 60. From page 17: "We generally find that the impact of the intervention is concentrated among individuals over age 50." Also worth noting is that this study is pre-vaccine and pre-herd immunity; we don't have great data after vaccines were widely available to corroborate continued mask wearing when 80+ percent of a population is immune.

Listen, it's a free country and you're of course welcome to keep wearing a mask, but I don't think you're getting the results you think you are.

[Z6IIAB]

The UK study is a computer simulation. For actual data, see the study out of India that looked at hundreds of thousands of people. They found that for those under 60, mask effects were not significant.

You are no doubt referring to this study:
https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/de ... 08.pdf.pdf

And it shows: "The intervention reduced symptomatic seroprevalence (adjusted prevalence ratio (aPR) = 0.91 [0.82, 1.00]), especially among adults 60+ years in villages where surgical masks were distributed (aPR = 0.65 [0.45, 0.85]).
Mask distribution and promotion was a scalable and effective method to reduce symptomatic
SARS-CoV-2 infections.

What they found is that masks were effective and especially among adults 60+ years.

Furthermore, from that study

We designed our trial to encourage universal mask-wearing at the community level, rather
than mask-wearing among only those with symptoms. We encouraged even healthy individuals to
wear masks since a substantial share of COVID-19 transmission stems from asymptomatic or pre-
symptomatic individuals (14), and masks may protect healthy wearers by reducing the inhalation
of aerosols or droplets (15–17).

We find clear evidence that surgical masks lead to a relative reduction in symptomatic seroprevalence of 11.1%...

11% is absolutely significant.

In surgical mask villages, we observe a 22.8% decline in symptomatic seroprevalence among individuals aged 50-60...

22.8% is incredibly significant

Go ahead and increase your risk by not wearing a mask. It is your choice, but don't kid yourself that you are not having a potential negative effect on yourself and potentially those around you.

Don't diminish the importance of mask wearing by misrepresenting what this study that you were touting said. It absolutely promoted the use of masks - especially surgical masks versus cloth masks. Your opinion that masks were not helpful is only that. The study does not agree with you.

Thanks, Rikki!

[RikkiTikkiTavi]

The UK study is a computer simulation. For actual data, see the study out of India that looked at hundreds of thousands of people. They found that for those under 60, mask effects were not significant.

.... Also worth noting is that this study is pre-vaccine and pre-herd immunity; we don't have great data after vaccines were widely available to corroborate continued mask wearing when 80+ percent of a population is immune.

Excellent job of constantly moving the goal posts even though this is the study you were touting.

I know nothing I say will change your personal perspective and that is not my goal. I do not however condone downplaying scientific data. Other people need to make up their minds based on facts - not opinions. And the conclusions of those conducting the study have more weight.

I am absolutely against mandates that remove the agency of people to make their own considered choices. Mask mandates are not effective even though wearing masks has legitimate benefits in reducing infections. Vaccine mandates are not effective because they polarize those who are vaccine hesitant - even though vaccines are effective in reducing deaths and hospitalizations from the virus.

I am sure you have evaluated the facts in regards to yourself and are making the choice you find reasonable. However other across the world (the audience of Sinfest) people are not in your situation. They may not have access to the vaccine or they may be in an area that does not have high vaccine rates and learning that wearing a mask can at minimum improve their chances by 11% and up to 22% and above - this can make a difference in someone's life.

So that is why I promote masks. Wearing a mask causes no harm and it is proven to help.

[grabachair]

That's fair, I can see how you would see it as moving the goalposts. I muddled the point by adding the fact that the study was pre-vaccine. That particular point aside, let's be precise about two things:

• What are the benefits of masks?

• What are the drawbacks?

Let's start with potential benefits: it does appear that for older people, the likelihood of infection is lowered. If you are immunocompromised or older than 50, a mask probably makes sense (unless you are immune). (One caveat here: yes, you might slightly lower infection rates among the young, but there is good evidence from Sweden and other countries that reaching herd immunity for the young is desireable and useful in protecting those at risk.)

Now for the drawbacks: There is good evidence that there are medical and psychological effects to mask wearing.
https://cw.ua.edu/65524/top-stories/ful ... -problems/
https://www.aier.org/article/medical-jo ... sequences/

A few excerpts:

In addition to hypoxia and hypercapnia, breathing through facemask residues bacterial and germs components on the inner and outside layer of the facemask. These toxic components are repeatedly rebreathed back into the body, causing self-contamination. Breathing through facemasks also increases temperature and humidity in the space between the mouth and the mask, resulting in a release of toxic particles from the mask’s materials. A systematic literature review estimated that aerosol contamination levels of facemasks including 13 to 202,549 different viruses. Rebreathing contaminated air with high bacterial and toxic particle concentrations along with low O2 and high CO2 levels continuously challenge the body homeostasis, causing self-toxicity and immunosuppression.

Encountering people who wear facemasks activates innate stress-fear emotion, which is fundamental to all humans in danger or life threatening situations, such as death or unknown, unpredictable outcome. While acute stress response (seconds to minutes) is an adaptive reaction to challenges and part of the survival mechanism, chronic and prolonged state of stress-fear is maladaptive and has detrimental effects on physical and mental health. The repeatedly or continuously activated stress-fear response causes the body to operate on survival mode, having sustained increase in blood pressure, pro-inflammatory state and immunosuppression.

Thus wearing a mask is not cost-free. It has to be weighed as a cost-benefit analysis.

Layered into all this is the fact that we are now in a world where many people are immune. I have yet to see a study that shows how wearing a mask when immune helps anyone. Plenty of conjecture, but no data yet there.

Here is my basic, total position:
If you are NOT IMMUNE:
1. If you are immunocompromised or older, wearing a mask in enclosed public spaces might help you. Make your own decisions.
2. If you are not these things, wearing a mask is probably a net negative, but do as you please.
3. If you are a child, unless you are in group #1, do not wear a mask.

If you are IMMUNE:
1. You are not helping anyone by wearing a mask. Don't do it.

[RikkiTikkiTavi]

Really not trying to be contentious for contentious sake however:
Your second source:
https://www.aier.org/article/medical-jo ... sequences/
Title is: "Medical Journal Warns About Masks’ Potentially Devastating Consequences"

This is the American Institute for Economic Research (not an actual scientific or medical journal) and at the top of this article they have:

[UPDATE: The paper discussed below was withdrawn from the journal following an editorial investigation. RetractionWatch explains the reasons for this decision. The authors of this article defer to the editors of the journal. We leave the text intact for reference purposes only.]

The reason for that decision:

Three days after we reported that Elsevier would be retracting a paper about COVID-19 and masks whose author claimed a false affiliation with Stanford, the publisher tells us that the “paper is misleading,” “misquotes and selectively cites published papers,” and that the data in one table is “unverified.”

And here is the full retraction reason:

Medical Hypotheses serves as a forum for innovative and often disruptive ideas in medicine and related biomedical sciences. However, the journal’s strict editorial policy is not to publish misleading or inaccurate citations to advance any hypotheses. The Editorial Committee concluded that this paper is misleading in the below aspects and has therefore decided to retract the article:

-A broader review of existing scientific evidence clearly shows that approved masks with correct certification, and worn in compliance with guidelines, are an effective prevention of COVID-19 transmission. [I am bolding this to make sure you see that even they are saying that the scientific evidence is for masks!!!!!]

– The manuscript misquotes and selectively cites published papers. References #16, 17 ,25 and 26 are all misquoted.

-Table 1. Physiological and Psychological Effects of Wearing Facemask and Their Potential Health Consequences, generated by the author. All data in the table is unverified, and there are several speculative statements. [This is the table that you are quoting from!!!!]

-The author submitted that he is currently affiliated to Stanford University, and VA Palo Alto Health Care System. However, both institutions have confirmed that Dr. Vainshelboim ended his connection with them in 2016.

A subsequent internal investigation by the Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher determined that this article was externally peer reviewed prior to publication but not with the journal’s customary standards of rigor. The journal has re-designed its editorial and review workflow to ensure that this will not happen again in future and would like to apologize to the readers of The Journal for difficulties this issue has caused.

So basing on that retraction we are just going to have to discount both the quotes you have included false:

"In addition to hypoxia and hypercapnia, ... "
and also :
"Encountering people who wear facemasks activates innate stress-fear emotion, ..."

These are at best 'speculative statements' as in not any actual science - and were retracted by the very publication you are touting.

I mean really - were you just not expecting me to check out your sources????

Also, the source:
https://cw.ua.edu/65524/top-stories/ful ... -problems/
Title: Full-time mask-wearing brings its own set of problems
And it is talking about facial breakouts and how dry your mouth gets when you mouth breathe and also how you can contaminate your mask if you touch it to things that have the Covid virus on them.

I hear you - maskne is not a fun thing - but if you actually wash your mask or change your mask - guess what - it is not an issue. Breathing through the nose is also the better way and can totally prevent the problems of mouth breathing. Really, that source is helpful because it advises you on correct mask wearing and cleaning.

You have not in any way proven your point that mask wearing is harmful. The source you quoted was not credible and was retracted by the very publication that first posted it. And that publication is not a science publication anyway.


The benefits of mask wearing far outweigh any 'drawbacks'. There is no evidence of hypoxia - there is no evidence of 'innate stress fear emotion' - there are no 'facts' in your article - just someone who does not like masks making a lot of speculation that is not supported by any science.

Indeed - do not wear a mask if you do not want to but if you say you are bringing some sort of proof about negative impacts of masks, my expectations are that it will be some sort of science.