# What the experts told the public about wearing a mask



## Amity Island (Feb 9, 2021)




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## mikeyB (Feb 10, 2021)

Rubbish. Contrary to all advice given by our government and scientific advisers. And who said folk who are carriers without symptoms can’t pass on the disease? That’s one of the factors that leads to spreading the virus. I’ve never seem such a collection of fake facts.


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## Docb (Feb 10, 2021)

People who express opinions on news channels or YouTube are not necessarily experts.  Might have some expertise in the area but how much is the question.

Again this is another area which the mainstream media seems only able to characterise as either good or bad. 

There are benefits from mask wearing but the question is whether any gains are significant or merely marginal.  My own opinion is that the gains are marginal - it might prevent somebody who is unknowingly contagious from passing it onto a random stranger in the street or supermarket.  I find it hard to believe that mask wearing from day one would have knocked any sort of real dent into the infection rate or mortality figures but it is possible that it is currently preventing some transmission and if you are after marginal benefits then it has value.

Overall I find the motivation behind videos such as that in the original post, has more to do with attracting attention than providing good advice.


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## mikeyB (Feb 10, 2021)

Who says they are experts? They are just voices of complaint  from folk who think wearing the mask is for wimps. Meanwhile, the new President is going with real experts in disease control and about to make mask wearing compulsory.


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## Ditto (Feb 10, 2021)

Even the plague doctors knew they should wear masks! Cripes humans are regressing, I've always known this. Numpties.


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## trophywench (Feb 11, 2021)

As JVT told everyone today - listen to what the NHS is telling us - not what you read elsewhere.

As he also said if he had a problem with his CH he wouldn't consult a brain surgeon - he would ask a CH engineer.


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## Eddy Edson (Feb 11, 2021)

Nah, the expert advice (WHO, Fauci, etc) deprecated mask wearing early on.  They got it wrong. Happens!


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## robert@fm (Feb 12, 2021)

The anti-maskers in that video seem to be guilty of the Appeal to Bogus Authority fallacy; just because someone is an expert, it doesn't follow that they have any expertise in the field in which they are giving their opinion.


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## travellor (Feb 15, 2021)

Easy mask test.

Light a candle.
Blow it out.

Light a candle.
Put on a mask
Blow it out.

Then tell me a mask doesn't stop the physical transmission of covid 19 over a distance.


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## pm133 (Feb 15, 2021)

travellor said:


> Easy mask test.
> 
> Light a candle.
> Blow it out.
> ...



Your breath along with all of the moisture and any associated bacteria or virus will still be coming out of your mask almost completely unhindered through the sides otherwise you would suffocate.
Just because they are not coming out directly in the direction of the candle doesn't mean anything significant is being stopped by the mask.
Masks are largely there as a soother for the public and to let people feel they are making a difference. The actual science behind how effective they are in reality is not well developed.


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## Eddy Edson (Feb 15, 2021)

pm133 said:


> Your breath along with all of the moisture and any associated bacteria or virus will still be coming out of your mask almost completely unhindered through the sides otherwise you would suffocate.
> Just because they are not coming out directly in the direction of the candle doesn't mean anything significant is being stopped by the mask.
> Masks are largely there as a soother for the public and to let people feel they are making a difference. The actual science behind how effective they are in reality is not well developed.


Or if you want to get expert opinion rather than Internet commentary it's easy enough to do so: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html


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## Eddy Edson (Feb 15, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> Weren't those experts also? In the original post and the australian newspaper article? Which Experts are right? Can't all be right...


Expert views change,


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## travellor (Feb 15, 2021)

pm133 said:


> Your breath along with all of the moisture and any associated bacteria or virus will still be coming out of your mask almost completely unhindered through the sides otherwise you would suffocate.
> Just because they are not coming out directly in the direction of the candle doesn't mean anything significant is being stopped by the mask.
> Masks are largely there as a soother for the public and to let people feel they are making a difference. The actual science behind how effective they are in reality is not well developed.


Vent direction. If you are that close to my shoulder, you aren't my problem.


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## pm133 (Feb 16, 2021)

Sigh! I just knew I would regret posting on this site again.
I'll leave you guys to it.


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## Ditto (Feb 16, 2021)

pm133 said:


> Sigh! I just knew I would regret posting on this site again.
> I'll leave you guys to it.


They're just discussing the topic, you have to be able to talk things through so we can learn stuff. I'm still wearing my mask whatever, it keeps my face warm.


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## Ditto (Feb 17, 2021)

Exactly. We see peoples with masks and it reminds us to be careful. 

If wearing a mask is no good why do surgeons operating wear them then? That doesn't make sense to me.


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## Maca44 (Feb 17, 2021)

A guy I work with refuses to wear a mask at work saying they are useless so cough's an sneezes all over the boxes of med I then have to deliver to care homes. I have tried to explain he needs to protect me and our care homes but he is so arrogant dumb he can't see the issue and this is a pharmacy.

I always wear a mask and gloves and use lots of anti bac gel to protect others more than myself, sneezing into a mask has got to be a good way of containing the bug surely, never going to be 100% but as Ditto says "Why do surgeons wear them".


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## Bruce Stephens (Feb 17, 2021)

Ditto said:


> If wearing a mask is no good why do surgeons operating wear them then?


They presumably have better quality masks than most of us use, and are more practiced in wearing them, and (for the serious PPE) have the fit tested.

Seems obvious that while the cloth masks I use suck at catching aerosols they'll probably be OK at catching larger droplets. And they surely won't be entirely useless at reducing aerosols.

So I'd guess they're of some value, though quite likely not that big. Maybe the main benefit is reminding us all that there's an infectious disease around.

The litter the single-use ones are causing seems very problematic, and will presumably get worse if we're persuaded to double mask, or use fancier FFP2 masks.

Not sure about what should happen in schools. It doesn't seem impossible that asking children to wear masks would make them less rather than more safe (because they'd be likely to be putting them on and taking them off during the day, and perhaps contaminate them), but the government doesn't seem interested in trying to find out what would be best to do. (A simple trial ought to have been possible.)


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## travellor (Feb 17, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> Hi Ditto,
> 
> The reasons a surgeon wears a mask is not to prevent the transmission of a respiratory virus -- which is what people are currently wearing masks for.
> 
> *Surgeons* and nurses performing clean *surgery wear* disposable *face masks*. The purpose of *face masks* is two-fold: to prevent the passage of germs from the *surgeon's* nose and mouth into the patient's wound and to protect the *surgeon's face* from sprays and splashes from the patient.


A bit like stopping sprays from other people,  and to stop you breathing on other people then?
A two way stopping of germs, sprays, breath, and fluid transmission?


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## travellor (Feb 17, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> Travellor,
> 
> Why would you want to stop catching germs?
> 
> ...



Why would you want to stop catching germs?
Do you wash your hands?

No, I do not want to "catch germs" on a totally random basis. 
And what data and trials can you provide that show increased exposure to germs builds up your immune system?
And if a mask has no benefit reducing germs, how can it decrease your immunity?
That's a contradiction.


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## travellor (Feb 17, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> Travellor, show me the "on the ground" evidence. See graphs above, what happened to covid cases after 24th July 2020 when masks were made mandatory?
> 
> Lets see what our chief medical officer thinks....
> 
> ...



So, you agree, if you are infected, wearing a mask will indeed reduce transmission?
Thank you for agreeing with that at least.


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## travellor (Feb 17, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> Allanah,
> 
> I don't understand what you are saying.
> 
> ...


I think we are all saying use current knowledge.
If you quite from years ago, and ignore the actual advances made, you can probably find anything on the internet to support you.
And if you admit you don't understand this, and don't understand thinking advances as we discover more, that says enough as well.
Science is about discovering new facts, not about looking back at mistakes. That's history. Build, grow better and wiser.


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## travellor (Feb 17, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> Hi Travellor,
> 
> My point there, was just that they knew nothing about the effectiveness of face masks back then, but still were happy to give out advice to the public. Surely, a more professional approach in those circumstances is to not say anything when you don't know anything, or just admit you don't know and leave it at that.
> 
> I'd still like to see the "on the ground" evidence of the effectiveness of the introduction of mandatory face masks. See my post above about the introduction of face masks on the 24th July 2020 and the huge spike in covid cases following it.


It doesn't show any spike at all, The rate of infection decreases as you have shown. 
Many other actual studies show a decrease as well.
So, I think that proves masks work.


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## travellor (Feb 17, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> I'm not saying you need to be right before you move. Quite the opposite, they shouldn't be advising the public on the not wearing a mask when they didn't have the data to prove that. Better to not say anything or just say they don't know.
> 
> I didn't miss quote you, I quoted you "" correctly. e.g "they knew next to nothing".  Please re-read it's shown in quotations. My comment was paraphrased (missing out "next"), not a quote.


To  be honest, if you need to massage quotes, and change them (sorry, "paraphrase) by totally rewriting out of context, it never looks an argument winner.
You are an anti masker. You're in a very low minority.
I think we need the thread reviewed by the moderators now.


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## Bruce Stephens (Feb 17, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> Cases go up day after day after day following introduction of masks on 24th July, look where they get up to by September?


Masks weren't the only thing that happened over the summer.

Looking at this graph, I think one could make a case for it being eat out to help out in August (which I also doubt was especially bad):









						COVID-19 Data Explorer
					

Research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems




					ourworldindata.org
				




Zooming in, it looks like numbers were increasing from July 19 rather than July 24.


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## Bruce Stephens (Feb 17, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> only that after they were introduced, there was no evidence they made any notable difference


Yes, I'm inclined to agree with that. (Someone might argue that during summer masks might well be less significant since people are outdoors more.) More generally, the world has really sucked at producing good evidence on lots of NPI. (And pharmaceutical interventions, for that matter.)

Maybe for masks you'd want lots of test capacity (to test a town population regularly, for example) and maybe by the time we had that it was too late to run a mask trial? And likely somewhere in Asia couldn't do one (despite having lots of testing) because masks would be something they'd automatically be using.

(So all we're left with is things like that Danish study showing that as an intervention for protecting the mask wearer it's not especially effective. Worth having but not the question most PH people were that interested in.)


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## Bruce Stephens (Feb 17, 2021)

Amity Island said:


> and like you suggested, we've hardly got any on the ground "town population" studies of their effectiveness like the one you mentioned.


No. Maybe we could have done. (Similarly, should children wear masks in schools? Presumably that could have been trialled.) But it's probably too late, now.


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## Maca44 (Feb 17, 2021)

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


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## travellor (Feb 17, 2021)

Darwinism


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## Eddy Edson (Feb 17, 2021)

This is the corpus of mask evidence as of Nov 2020, according to the CDC: 

_Data regarding the “real-world” effectiveness of community masking are limited to observational and epidemiological studies.
_

_An investigation of a high-exposure event, in which 2 symptomatically ill hair stylists interacted for an average of 15 minutes with each of 139 clients during an 8-day period, found that none of the 67 clients who subsequently consented to an interview and testing developed infection. The stylists and all clients universally wore masks in the salon as required by local ordinance and company policy at the time.32_
_In a study of 124 Beijing households with > 1 laboratory-confirmed case of SARS-CoV-2 infection, mask use by the index patient and family contacts before the index patient developed symptoms reduced secondary transmission within the households by 79%.33_
_A retrospective case-control study from Thailand documented that, among more than 1,000 persons interviewed as part of contact tracing investigations, those who reported having always worn a mask during high-risk exposures experienced a greater than 70% reduced risk of acquiring infection compared with persons who did not wear masks under these circumstances.34_
_A study of an outbreak aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an environment notable for congregate living quarters and close working environments, found that use of face coverings on-board was associated with a 70% reduced risk.35_
_Investigations involving infected passengers aboard flights longer than 10 hours strongly suggest that masking prevented in-flight transmissions, as demonstrated by the absence of infection developing in other passengers and crew in the 14 days following exposure.36,37_
_Seven studies have confirmed the benefit of universal masking in community level analyses: in a unified hospital system,38 a  German city,39 a U.S. state,40 a panel of 15 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.,41,42 as well as both Canada43 and the U.S.44 nationally. Each analysis demonstrated that, following directives from organizational and political leadership for universal masking, new infections fell significantly. Two of these studies42,44 and an additional analysis of data from 200 countries that included the U.S.45 also demonstrated reductions in mortality. An economic analysis using U.S. data found that, given these effects, increasing universal masking by 15% could prevent the need for lockdowns and reduce associated losses of up to $1 trillion or about 5% of gross domestic product.42_









						Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
					

CDC provides credible COVID-19 health information to the U.S.




					www.cdc.gov


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