It's pleasant in short bursts but I find that after walking to work for 25 minutes in sub-freezing weather, my mask gets clogged with condensation and becomes stifling to breathe through.
During the spring though, I found that wearing a mask completely prevented all of my seasonal allergy symptoms.
And even that benefit isn't enough for many people to wear masks unless absolutely required (e.g. inside shops). It's been unusually cold the past few weeks in the UK and I've seen less and less mask usage on busy streets and even shop queues.
I can't speak for anyone else, but in NYC I've been finding I have to take my mask off outside or I literally can't see, because that's how much my glasses fog up. Like, I walked straight into a pole one night.
After that, I decided that the increased risk of getting COVID was lower than the risk of getting hit by a car.
I do know it's not this bad for everyone, and I have tried different methods to mitigate it—anti-fog spray, different masks, etc. From what I've read it's largely dependent on the shape of your face, so I assume I just lost the lottery there.
Oh, I sympathise even though I don’t wear prescriptions. I do like to wear sunglasses quite often, and even thought it’d help reduce a vector of infection. But I can’t get a mask and sunglasses combo that works for more than 10 seconds!
I mitigate it by simply not covering my nose. Before I started doing that, condensation on my glasses was so bad on certain days, that I had to have my partner lead me by the hand across pedestrian crossings, because I could see neither the lights nor cars.
Mask laws were instituted to get people to cover both nose and mouth, but it is interesting to see different levels of observance across Europe. In small-town Poland, for example, I see a lot of people not covering their nose, while in Romania I saw that people were very diligent about covering their whole face, and I have laughed to watch Albanian news and see that a lot of people in the street just have the mask over their chin with neither mouth nor nose covered.
> I mitigate it by simply not covering my nose. Before I started doing that, condensation on my glasses was so bad on certain days, that I had to have my partner lead me by the hand across pedestrian crossings, because I could see neither the lights nor cars.
So it's not just me! But, if you're not actively talking (ie, your mouth is closed), is wearing a mask below your nose any better than just taking it off? I figure at that point, I might as well put it in my back pocket.
I couldn't take it off entirely, because in the countries I have been this winter masks are required outdoors by law, and taking it off could lead to fines if police saw me.
You can almost 100% solve the issue by taping the top edge of the mask to your face with surgical tape. Just a 6 inch strip of tape along your nose and under each eye and glasses fogging was 98% gone for me. It's probably not the most comfortable for some people, but not so different from wearing a band-aid. Very cheap and works with almost any mask.
Also makes it hard to take off and on. Something I do frequently when I’m out and about as there’s no point in wearing the annoying thing in my car or outdoors away from crowds.
You'd have to separate out the effect of AC though. In the hottest and wettest parts of the country, people may actually live more of their lives in cold and dry air-conditioned environments than in the north...
Considering that Brazilian scientists described the government's strategy as an "institutional strategy to spread the coronavirus"[1] and they're reporting a lower death rate than France[2], you have to figure something in Brazil is working in humanity's favor. It can't make up for (probably) the worst policies in the world, of course.
I don't think you can conclude anything from those numbers. On the one hand Brazil is very likely underreporting and has a much younger population, but on the other hand their medical care is not as good.
I've seen some estimates that with the same age distribution as Brazil France would have had half the number of deaths: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-55847831 (Portuguese link)
It may be a factor, but it's a pretty big leap to say that's what is behind countries' successes and failures. I mean, I've even seen people claiming it's due to "Asians eating a lot of fish".
The most obvious explanation is (even literally) right in front of our noses: politics, culture and age distribution.
It seems that way. Here's another analysis of studies that focused on indoor humidity.
>"If the relative humidity of indoor air is below 40 percent, the particles emitted by infected people absorb less water, remain lighter, fly further through the room and are more likely to be inhaled by healthy people. In addition, dry air also makes the mucous membranes in our noses dry and more permeable to viruses," summarizes Dr. Ajit Ahlawat.
(and before anyone says it: sure, you can argue that mask-wearing correlates with population density or some other factor that leads to greater disease prevalence, but doesn't that just beg the original question? People are wearing masks the most in the places with the highest disease prevalence. If "the reason" that Vietnam did well is mask compliance...well, why didn't it work just as well here?)
"
Our review of the literature offers evidence in favor of widespread mask use as source control to reduce community transmission: Nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size; people are most infectious in the initial period postinfection, where it is common to have few or no symptoms (45, 46, 141); nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses; and places and time periods where mask usage is required or widespread have shown substantially lower community transmission.
The available evidence suggests that near-universal adoption of nonmedical masks when out in public, in combination with complementary public health measures, could successfully reduce Re
to below 1, thereby reducing community spread if such measures are sustained. Economic analysis suggests that mask wearing mandates could add 1 trillion dollars to the US GDP (32, 34).
Models suggest that public mask wearing is most effective at reducing spread of the virus when compliance is high (39).
"
FROM
An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19 by Jeremy Howard, Austin Huang, et al.
Yeah, I've read it, and I've read everything cited in it. In the evidentiary contest between a review paper and empirical reality...reality wins. But let's put a pin in that for a second. This is a bad review, and people need to know why.
This review completely misrepresents the results of cited papers, and is extremely sloppy with many others. For example, they claim that this RCT [0] found evidence supporting mask use for influenza, when in reality, it found no significant difference versus the control. Yet the authors of the Howard review blatantly mis-represent the top-line conclusion of the trial:
> There has been one controlled trial of mask use for influenza control in the general community....It found that “in an adjusted analysis of compliant subjects, masks as a group had protective efficacy in excess of 80% against clinical influenza-like illness.”
Moreover, this review omits the only randomized controlled trial ever conducted for masks and Covid [1] (which found no statistically significant protective effect), presumably because the RCT didn't support their argument.
In general, this review's sloppy use of citations (as in the section you've quoted) mixes statements of facts with dubious assertions -- unsupported by any evidence at all -- in order to make it seem that those assertions are fact. For example, from your quote, it's trivial to see examples:
> "nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size"
I don't know what "nonmedical masks" are, but the category is so broad that a statement like this is utterly meaningless, even if it were backed by a citation (which it isn't).
> "nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses"
Again, I'm not sure what a "nonmedical mask" is, but there's no citation here, so this is just a bald assertion.
The evidence base for masks -- of any sort -- against respiratory viruses is so weak that even recent a review published by the CDC in May 2020 argues that they have no effect [2]. For cloth masks specifically, the only randomized trial ever conducted showed that people wearing cloth masks were worse off than those wearing surgical masks [3].
There have been a number of fair, quality reviews of the mask debate (for example, [4]). This is not one of them.
Both your links claim less than 95% compliance, and both suggest a recent, marked improvement in mask wearing from earlier dates (but still well after the start of the pandemic).
The last link (with the most recent data) shows well over 95% compliance in urban areas. The first link is over 90% nationwide. Surveys, no matter where they happen, have margins of error.
But regardless, are you seriously arguing that the difference between Vietnam and the US is...a few percent difference in self-reported mask compliance?
If the miracle cure of masking requires 100% compliance amongst 330 million people, your plan is doomed from the start.
This is not my actual experience in the United States. It's practically impossible to find a laundromat in Rhode Island that isn't constantly full of maskless noses, and we're a blue state.
EDIT:
>More than nine in 10 U.S. adults (93%) said they sometimes, often or always wear a mask or face covering when they leave their home and are unable to socially distance, including more than seven in 10 (72%) who said they always do so, the poll revealed.
That's not 93% compliance, it's 72% compliance. In other words, the noncompliance rate is five times higher!
India doesn't, and for the life of me can't figure out where the disease disappeared. There are cases and even if the govt is suppressing numbers it's still outrageously nonexistent given the level of normalcy everything has gone to.
Interesting how these countries where infections are trending the right way are so compliant. And then when infections are trending the other way, suddenly they are no longer compliant any more.
Like Japan, oh the population is so used to wearing masks so everything is going great. Except when cases went up, that was when they suddenly had a memory lapse and forgot how to wear their masks.
A recent paper showed that obesity was related to spreading sars-cov-2 more readily, not just the severity of disease of the obese individual. The US and UK are world leaders in both obesity and virus spread. And the countries doing well with the virus are healthy and well within the normal weight range. I don’t honestly believe it will be as simple as this, but it’s amusing to think this _could_ be the big surprise connection.
I propose that when handled by the average citizen they also increase the risk of bacterial pneumonia as you filter your warm moist breath through a bacteria catcher/cultivator.
We'd have an absolutely massive uptick in non-COVID pneumonia if that were the case.
(It'd also be a known phenomenon for surgeons, dentists, nurses, painters, drywall installers, nail technicians, etc. who've been using masks for decades.)
We know because, again, various professions have been using masks extensively for decades without all dropping dead of pneumonia.
Your theory also falls down with the spikey nature of hospitalizations/deaths. If it were the masks, you'd see a steadily high count of these, not outbreaks that come and go. The big early spikes in Italy and NYC were before masking at all became a thing, even.
> The big early spikes in Italy and NYC were before masking at all became a thing, even.
And the first wave, which triggered the first wave of lockdowns, was all during the time where there were barely enough masks for medical personnel, let alone the general public.
Who is “you guys”? You don’t get to be the gatekeeper on biology and medicine. This is a very reasonable concern. The mouth is one of the dirtiest places on the body, which is why human bites are so dangerous. Bacteria transfers from hands which is why we promote washing hands. The logic follows this hypothesis.
If one were to wear the same pair of underwear every day without washing them, you'd probably smell bad and end up with nasty rashes. But unless you are homeless where it is difficult, everybody changes their underwear daily and washes it after every use.
If you don't wash your plates, bowls, and utensils, you can get sick due to crud which has grown on the residual cruft. That is why people wash them between uses.
If you are using your mask long enough that it is developing bacterial growths, that is your fault and isn't flaw of the mask. Wash your mask after every use, giving it ample dwell time in the soap before rinsing it. Wring it out, hang it to dry, no problems.
I wonder if they're any similar effect at play worth those who sleep/breathe with their mouth open vs closed.
Would need proper testing but the "arm chair" thinking here is two fold:
1. the nasal passage is specifically intended to help inhaled air warm and be mildly humidified
2. A tendency to sleep with your mouth open is more common in those who are overweight and they've often been observed to be hit worse by Covid
I'm mainly thinking point 1 here, as point 2 is probably just a convenient coincidence, but you never know (until it's tested or at least considered by more of an expert in this field than me the amateur!)
To add to your thinking: COVID infection is usually most dominant in the nasal passages. The lungs are less vulnerable to infection, but may get infected via the upper respiratory system via aspiration. This is a really interesting read:
When sleeping, do obese people generally do more mouth-breathing? (IIRC, obesity is a major risk factor for sleep apnea.)
If so, it might take some legwork to untangle those two factors (mouth breathing vs other obesity issues) to explain covid's disproportionate impact on obese people.
There is indeed compelling evidence that nose breathing has many health benefits compared to mouth breathing. Including but not limited to better sleep, and immume function.
Humidity affects the dessication of droplets, which in turn shifts what fraction become airborne (as aerosols) or settle out (as droplets). In the tiny enclosed volume between your face and your mask, that difference doesn't matter, because the whole volume is exchanged multiple times with each breath.
Masks reduce the number of viruses that you're exposed to, so even if you are exposed to enough to make you sick, you get less sick than you would have otherwise.
> Humidity affects the dessication of droplets, which in turn shifts what fraction become airborne (as aerosols) or settle out (as droplets). In the tiny enclosed volume between your face and your mask, that difference doesn't matter, because the whole volume is exchanged multiple times with each breath.
The article doesn't say anything about droplets or the number of viral particles you get exposed to. From the article:
> hydration of the respiratory tract is known to benefit the immune system.
Why do so many people exist, who outright disregard any public hygiene?
Why do you enter a public bathroom, touch your privates with unwashed hands and then leave without washing your hands? Why do you spit on the floor? Why do you sneeze and cough in public transport without covering your mouth and nose?
Can stupidity or ignorance alone explain this germ spreading behavior? What are the psychological mechanisms behind these highly infectious people? What’s wrong with them? At least we need an explanation for why we are suffering this huge amount of pain!
You would be surprised how much bacteria can grow on fabric after an 8 hour workday assuming you have a customer facing job and need to wear a mask all day
It seems like wearing a mask in some environments (public transit, crowded shops, etc) might be a good practice going forward. I wonder if it will be normalized? Will you stand out if you choose to wear a mask to the mall 5 years from now?
Don't take this as a personal attack, but when I see people regularly wearing masks 5 years from now I'll certainly bias against engaging with them. I'll assume they don't understand risk and prioritize fear and emotion over reason. I won't be mean to them (nor disrespectful at all) but I will keep my distance socially (yes, somewhat ironically.)
From a strictly rational perspective, wearing a mask in public transit is always the correct decision, you are statistically less likely to contract airbourne diseases with a mask on. You're free to attach emotional significance to the act of wearing a mask, but maybe it has the desired effect - I personally would rather not interact socially with anyone on public transit, so maybe we are both the better for it.
>you are statistically less likely to contract airbourne diseases with a mask on.
What are you basing this assessment on? Are all masks equal? Does training in mask application matter? For what duration are different types of masks effective?
Google is good for this. N95 and higher is effective. Mask application matters but they're effective without 100% seal. I don't think they get less effective with time, just harder to breathe through.
I find N95 easier to breathe through than surgical masks. They use static, not mechanical filtration, which doesn't seem to cause much restriction on air flow.
They do get less effective with time, exposure to moisture. Using alcohol to clean an N95 will significantly reduce its effectiveness.
Early on, Stanford did a study on various methods of sterilizing N95s and the change of effectiveness. Heat (70°C for 30 mins) was best.
From a strictly rational perspective, avoiding any and all infection is not the correct decision because that way you don’t build up an immune system and remain massively vulnerable to the mildest of diseases.
You can probably safely assume anyone wearing a mask in 5 years is doing so because they are sick but still need to be in public for essential everyday tasks.
Do you feel the same way about seatbelts? If people choose to be safer by wearing masks, judging them is pretty extreme. This kind of attitude is what made the early days of the pandemic a mess.
This is a silly false equivalence but I'll engage with it because it seems annoyingly popular. The evidence of efficacy of seatbelt usage in crash scenarios is abundantly clear. The same isn't true for wearing a cloth/surgical mask in public during a pandemic featuring an airborne virus. I'm aware there are hand-wavy meta-studies and extrapolated surveys on the issue (but 1 RCT from Denmark which showed no statistical significance between control and experimental groups. See https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/m20-6817) but common sense and being able to evaluate statistics of mask mandated regions vs. not indicates to me their findings are dubious at best. Even n95s are not likely useful against an airborne virus if not properly fitted and regularly replaced.
What wearing the mask does show me is that a person is extremely susceptible to propaganda and likely has conformist tendencies. This isn't necessarily true in all cases but I think it will be for the majority of them. This sort of person is dangerous to bring in to your social circle because they can easily be manipulated into being an instrument of the state. I don't want to have to police my own thoughts and opinions in front of my friends and in an increasing totalitarian "cancel culture" environment this risk becomes increasingly more substantial and existential.
Is it not obvious, common sense and proven that masks stop you from spreading the virus if you have it and don't know yet? Are there still people unaware of that? Out of curiosity, where do you live?
And you should tell frontline medical personnel that masks don't protect them, they'll be glad your non-conformist ultra intelligent mind managed to figure it out.
Masks cover one's facial expressions. Showing one's own facial expression and being able to see others’ is an important part of social interaction in many cultures. Indeed, whether one person feels he or she can instinctively trust another is often based on getting a view of the other person’s face.
This behavior can be suspended temporarily on a short-term basis when a population perceives an urgent state of pandemic or (as in Japan) when an individual says he has a cold, but it may not be sustainable at a society-wide scale beyond that. Seatbelts faced cultural resistance before adoption, sure, but much less than masks would once the acute COVID risk has passed.
2018, someone has a bad flu, still wants to get groceries or go to the doctor.
In Japan: they'd be worried about infecting others so they would wear a mask.
In USA: Even if they cared about other and could buy a mask, they'd be worried about the weird looks, so they don't wear a mask.
Hopefully in 2026, assuming Covid is solved by then, people wearing masks in the US won't be looked weirdly, or even if people like you do, the sick people would think "Why should I give a shit what you think.".
In some (mostly Asian) countries you're expected to wear a mask if you go out when you're sick. Contrast that to freedomland where it's normal to have people hacking like crazy just about everywhere.
It's required to wear a mask 100% of the time in some medical professions. This is usually so you don't get vulnerable people sick, not to protect yourself. Medicine is highly evidence based. If masks didn't work these rules wouldn't exist.
Most of those wearing masks aren't doing it out of "fear and emotion", they're doing it to protect others. We all know that cloth style masks everyone is wearing offer the wearer almost no protection. The value is primarily in the protection they provide to others by blocking aerosols when you breathe and talk.
I get the feeling you follow some news sources that erroneously claim people wear masks to calm their fear and emotions
Using terms like "Freedomland" expose your biases fairly clearly and make it easy for me to safely ignore you.
But you might be surprised to learn that even as recently as 2016 the use of masks in surgical settings wasn't understood to be backed by very strong science: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/
Lol "you aren't likely to share the same opinions as me because of a word you used so I I'm going to ignore you". Very intellectual, rational, and nuanced good brain type thinking.
This article is about surgical masks which are basically tissue paper not N95's. In some healthcare settings N95 is required especially when dealing with immunocompromised or extremely infections diseases like active TB or SARS. The evidence for these is much stronger
It became normal practice in East Asia after bad flu pandemics.
To be quite honest, masks are very helpful, given that they are infinitely more effective than covering the mouth with hands or elbow (it doesn't block everything, and people often do not sanitize their hands or elbows afterwards).
Masks are also used in Japan to protect the wearer from allergens during their allergy season. After I read about it, I also started doing this, and I noticed my symptoms were a lot less terrible than previous years. They are also used in China when smog is bad.
Given how cheap masks are, and how we will have a lot of manufacturing left after all this that will drive prices down, to me it is a no-brainer, and I'd definitely prefer it if Americans resume their practice of coming into work sick once we are at least partially back in office. (Now, they do this because we have terrible sick leave, but masks are at least not super-expensive at solving the problem absent some state or federal push for mandated paid sick leave.)
Doubt it. Not wearing masks has become a political hill many have chosen to die on, and there are tons of people who virtue signal by choosing to go without them or judging others for choosing to wear them.
These days if I feel any sort of respiratory illness coming on I head straight to bed and get my head under the covers. The secret is to create a 'cave' or pocket of air by using a pole or prop to hold the duvet or comforter up like a little tent. Experience does seem to bear out that lungs prefer moist, warm air.
It'd increase them, for sure. Never mind, though, the only cognitive effort required is a focus on gentle breathing. Plus an occasional flick of the duvet to refresh the air!
The idea isn't to go to sleep but to avert a full-blown cold or other respiratory infection if possible. Usually takes 15-45 minutes. But you have to catch it right at the start and you have to be at home, obviously.
If you're concerned about carbon dioxide you can either refresh the air periodically or you can create a small gap in the duvet to allow some exchange of air with the surrounding room (whilst keeping the humidity relatively high).
It does seem to me that this has been done ass-backwards. That is - first mask mandates (and in many countries, too), then the research that supports the idea that they do anything. Or, in this case, "researchers propose".
What would you propose we do instead? Give a group masks and tell a control group explicitly to not wear masks, then see who contracts COVID more often?
There is such a thing called ethics. You can't experiment on people when you have good reason to expect something will be harmful for them, like feed them cancerous stuff to see what happens. But you can check what happened to the people that didn't comply, for example those that accidentally ate that food, and still learn something.
Telling people to wear masks, even if there is a chance it doesn't help, is not a weird idea during a pandemic. The chance of it being counterproductive was fairly negligible compared to the chance of it helping, and so you should do it.
No, mask mandates were because masks stop you from inflecting other people if you're sick and don't know it yet by stopping the air you exhale and limiting its range.
This is research that wearing a mask actually help you have a lesser form of Covid, entirely independently of propagation.
Measure the humidity in the air where you live, especially where you sleep (and therefore probably spend most of your time). If it's below 30% in the winter, get a humidifier good enough to actually raise it. If you can't get a humidifier good enough to humidify your entire living spaces, try just your bedroom.
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[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadIt's very effective at warming up the air, probably because it mixes it with the one in the dead space.
During the spring though, I found that wearing a mask completely prevented all of my seasonal allergy symptoms.
After that, I decided that the increased risk of getting COVID was lower than the risk of getting hit by a car.
I do know it's not this bad for everyone, and I have tried different methods to mitigate it—anti-fog spray, different masks, etc. From what I've read it's largely dependent on the shape of your face, so I assume I just lost the lottery there.
Mask laws were instituted to get people to cover both nose and mouth, but it is interesting to see different levels of observance across Europe. In small-town Poland, for example, I see a lot of people not covering their nose, while in Romania I saw that people were very diligent about covering their whole face, and I have laughed to watch Albanian news and see that a lot of people in the street just have the mask over their chin with neither mouth nor nose covered.
So it's not just me! But, if you're not actively talking (ie, your mouth is closed), is wearing a mask below your nose any better than just taking it off? I figure at that point, I might as well put it in my back pocket.
It seems to be very effective. I can't find a picture, unfortunately my description leaves a lot to be desired.
But it's a common problem and there are a variety of products that try to address it.
Possibly relevant study: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-virology-0...
[1]: https://english.elpais.com/americas/2021-01-29/study-finds-t...
[2]: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
For Brazil, it's a bit more than 9%.
We know very well that age is a significant factor.
The most obvious explanation is (even literally) right in front of our noses: politics, culture and age distribution.
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/news-storie...
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
( Resurgence of COVID-19 in Manaus, Brazil, despite high seroprevalence )
>"If the relative humidity of indoor air is below 40 percent, the particles emitted by infected people absorb less water, remain lighter, fly further through the room and are more likely to be inhaled by healthy people. In addition, dry air also makes the mucous membranes in our noses dry and more permeable to viruses," summarizes Dr. Ajit Ahlawat.
https://www.tropos.de/en/current-issues/press-releases/detai...
Actual paper:
https://aaqr.org/articles/aaqr-20-06-covid-0302
https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/28979/what-s-be...
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201022/mask-use-by-america...
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/27/more-americ...
Break it down by county or state, and you'll find that many of the the areas with the highest reported compliance have the worst overall metrics:
https://delphi.cmu.edu/covidcast/?date=20210209®ion=42003...
(and before anyone says it: sure, you can argue that mask-wearing correlates with population density or some other factor that leads to greater disease prevalence, but doesn't that just beg the original question? People are wearing masks the most in the places with the highest disease prevalence. If "the reason" that Vietnam did well is mask compliance...well, why didn't it work just as well here?)
" Our review of the literature offers evidence in favor of widespread mask use as source control to reduce community transmission: Nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size; people are most infectious in the initial period postinfection, where it is common to have few or no symptoms (45, 46, 141); nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses; and places and time periods where mask usage is required or widespread have shown substantially lower community transmission.
The available evidence suggests that near-universal adoption of nonmedical masks when out in public, in combination with complementary public health measures, could successfully reduce Re
to below 1, thereby reducing community spread if such measures are sustained. Economic analysis suggests that mask wearing mandates could add 1 trillion dollars to the US GDP (32, 34).
Models suggest that public mask wearing is most effective at reducing spread of the virus when compliance is high (39). "
FROM
An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19 by Jeremy Howard, Austin Huang, et al.
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
This review completely misrepresents the results of cited papers, and is extremely sloppy with many others. For example, they claim that this RCT [0] found evidence supporting mask use for influenza, when in reality, it found no significant difference versus the control. Yet the authors of the Howard review blatantly mis-represent the top-line conclusion of the trial:
> There has been one controlled trial of mask use for influenza control in the general community....It found that “in an adjusted analysis of compliant subjects, masks as a group had protective efficacy in excess of 80% against clinical influenza-like illness.”
Moreover, this review omits the only randomized controlled trial ever conducted for masks and Covid [1] (which found no statistically significant protective effect), presumably because the RCT didn't support their argument.
In general, this review's sloppy use of citations (as in the section you've quoted) mixes statements of facts with dubious assertions -- unsupported by any evidence at all -- in order to make it seem that those assertions are fact. For example, from your quote, it's trivial to see examples:
> "nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size"
I don't know what "nonmedical masks" are, but the category is so broad that a statement like this is utterly meaningless, even if it were backed by a citation (which it isn't).
> "nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses"
Again, I'm not sure what a "nonmedical mask" is, but there's no citation here, so this is just a bald assertion.
The evidence base for masks -- of any sort -- against respiratory viruses is so weak that even recent a review published by the CDC in May 2020 argues that they have no effect [2]. For cloth masks specifically, the only randomized trial ever conducted showed that people wearing cloth masks were worse off than those wearing surgical masks [3].
There have been a number of fair, quality reviews of the mask debate (for example, [4]). This is not one of them.
[0] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Esam_Azhar2/publication...
[1] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817
[2] https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/pdf/bmj...
[4] https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-...
But regardless, are you seriously arguing that the difference between Vietnam and the US is...a few percent difference in self-reported mask compliance?
If the miracle cure of masking requires 100% compliance amongst 330 million people, your plan is doomed from the start.
This is not my actual experience in the United States. It's practically impossible to find a laundromat in Rhode Island that isn't constantly full of maskless noses, and we're a blue state.
EDIT:
>More than nine in 10 U.S. adults (93%) said they sometimes, often or always wear a mask or face covering when they leave their home and are unable to socially distance, including more than seven in 10 (72%) who said they always do so, the poll revealed.
That's not 93% compliance, it's 72% compliance. In other words, the noncompliance rate is five times higher!
Like Japan, oh the population is so used to wearing masks so everything is going great. Except when cases went up, that was when they suddenly had a memory lapse and forgot how to wear their masks.
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/8/e2021830118?fbclid=IwAR3q...
(It'd also be a known phenomenon for surgeons, dentists, nurses, painters, drywall installers, nail technicians, etc. who've been using masks for decades.)
Your theory also falls down with the spikey nature of hospitalizations/deaths. If it were the masks, you'd see a steadily high count of these, not outbreaks that come and go. The big early spikes in Italy and NYC were before masking at all became a thing, even.
And the first wave, which triggered the first wave of lockdowns, was all during the time where there were barely enough masks for medical personnel, let alone the general public.
To others, with broken skin.
We're inhaling air that passes through our own dirty mouths pretty regularly without getting infected by it already.
If you don't wash your plates, bowls, and utensils, you can get sick due to crud which has grown on the residual cruft. That is why people wash them between uses.
If you are using your mask long enough that it is developing bacterial growths, that is your fault and isn't flaw of the mask. Wash your mask after every use, giving it ample dwell time in the soap before rinsing it. Wring it out, hang it to dry, no problems.
Would need proper testing but the "arm chair" thinking here is two fold:
1. the nasal passage is specifically intended to help inhaled air warm and be mildly humidified
2. A tendency to sleep with your mouth open is more common in those who are overweight and they've often been observed to be hit worse by Covid
I'm mainly thinking point 1 here, as point 2 is probably just a convenient coincidence, but you never know (until it's tested or at least considered by more of an expert in this field than me the amateur!)
https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/researchers-map-how-coronavirus...
If so, it might take some legwork to untangle those two factors (mouth breathing vs other obesity issues) to explain covid's disproportionate impact on obese people.
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/health-benefits-of-br...
Here's why:
Humidity affects the dessication of droplets, which in turn shifts what fraction become airborne (as aerosols) or settle out (as droplets). In the tiny enclosed volume between your face and your mask, that difference doesn't matter, because the whole volume is exchanged multiple times with each breath.
Masks reduce the number of viruses that you're exposed to, so even if you are exposed to enough to make you sick, you get less sick than you would have otherwise.
The article doesn't say anything about droplets or the number of viral particles you get exposed to. From the article:
> hydration of the respiratory tract is known to benefit the immune system.
I cited this story because it pointed out that the air was heated along with being humidified.
This is the original press release from U of C Medicine [1].
[0] https://chicago.suntimes.com/coronavirus/2020/4/25/21236187/...
[1]https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/coronavirus-disea...
Why do you enter a public bathroom, touch your privates with unwashed hands and then leave without washing your hands? Why do you spit on the floor? Why do you sneeze and cough in public transport without covering your mouth and nose?
Can stupidity or ignorance alone explain this germ spreading behavior? What are the psychological mechanisms behind these highly infectious people? What’s wrong with them? At least we need an explanation for why we are suffering this huge amount of pain!
What are you basing this assessment on? Are all masks equal? Does training in mask application matter? For what duration are different types of masks effective?
They do get less effective with time, exposure to moisture. Using alcohol to clean an N95 will significantly reduce its effectiveness.
Early on, Stanford did a study on various methods of sterilizing N95s and the change of effectiveness. Heat (70°C for 30 mins) was best.
https://news.stanford.edu/2020/04/01/researchers-show-how-to...
What wearing the mask does show me is that a person is extremely susceptible to propaganda and likely has conformist tendencies. This isn't necessarily true in all cases but I think it will be for the majority of them. This sort of person is dangerous to bring in to your social circle because they can easily be manipulated into being an instrument of the state. I don't want to have to police my own thoughts and opinions in front of my friends and in an increasing totalitarian "cancel culture" environment this risk becomes increasingly more substantial and existential.
And you should tell frontline medical personnel that masks don't protect them, they'll be glad your non-conformist ultra intelligent mind managed to figure it out.
This behavior can be suspended temporarily on a short-term basis when a population perceives an urgent state of pandemic or (as in Japan) when an individual says he has a cold, but it may not be sustainable at a society-wide scale beyond that. Seatbelts faced cultural resistance before adoption, sure, but much less than masks would once the acute COVID risk has passed.
In Japan: they'd be worried about infecting others so they would wear a mask.
In USA: Even if they cared about other and could buy a mask, they'd be worried about the weird looks, so they don't wear a mask.
Hopefully in 2026, assuming Covid is solved by then, people wearing masks in the US won't be looked weirdly, or even if people like you do, the sick people would think "Why should I give a shit what you think.".
It's required to wear a mask 100% of the time in some medical professions. This is usually so you don't get vulnerable people sick, not to protect yourself. Medicine is highly evidence based. If masks didn't work these rules wouldn't exist.
Most of those wearing masks aren't doing it out of "fear and emotion", they're doing it to protect others. We all know that cloth style masks everyone is wearing offer the wearer almost no protection. The value is primarily in the protection they provide to others by blocking aerosols when you breathe and talk.
I get the feeling you follow some news sources that erroneously claim people wear masks to calm their fear and emotions
But you might be surprised to learn that even as recently as 2016 the use of masks in surgical settings wasn't understood to be backed by very strong science: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/
This article is about surgical masks which are basically tissue paper not N95's. In some healthcare settings N95 is required especially when dealing with immunocompromised or extremely infections diseases like active TB or SARS. The evidence for these is much stronger
To be quite honest, masks are very helpful, given that they are infinitely more effective than covering the mouth with hands or elbow (it doesn't block everything, and people often do not sanitize their hands or elbows afterwards).
Masks are also used in Japan to protect the wearer from allergens during their allergy season. After I read about it, I also started doing this, and I noticed my symptoms were a lot less terrible than previous years. They are also used in China when smog is bad.
Given how cheap masks are, and how we will have a lot of manufacturing left after all this that will drive prices down, to me it is a no-brainer, and I'd definitely prefer it if Americans resume their practice of coming into work sick once we are at least partially back in office. (Now, they do this because we have terrible sick leave, but masks are at least not super-expensive at solving the problem absent some state or federal push for mandated paid sick leave.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19411998
> CO2 tended to cause poor sleep, headache, and hand tremor before it caused cognitive issues.
If you're concerned about carbon dioxide you can either refresh the air periodically or you can create a small gap in the duvet to allow some exchange of air with the surrounding room (whilst keeping the humidity relatively high).
There is such a thing called ethics. You can't experiment on people when you have good reason to expect something will be harmful for them, like feed them cancerous stuff to see what happens. But you can check what happened to the people that didn't comply, for example those that accidentally ate that food, and still learn something.
Telling people to wear masks, even if there is a chance it doesn't help, is not a weird idea during a pandemic. The chance of it being counterproductive was fairly negligible compared to the chance of it helping, and so you should do it.
Or did I misunderstand what you meant there?
This is research that wearing a mask actually help you have a lesser form of Covid, entirely independently of propagation.