MouthBQ98 said:

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It will slow transmission rates which will protract the epidemic by months or even years but will keep hospitalizations manageable. The question is what are the opportunity costs of a protracted epidemic.

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It also buys time until a vaccine is found and distributed.

Doug Ross said:

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Yukon Cornelius said:

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Not really. Its human nature. Society is scared and will look to anything that gives them peace. Masks provide that. Governments look for ways to take more control. Theyve done that.

Riddle me this. How is it a good idea that breathing in your own bacteria from your mouth during a time when peoples lungs may be comprised before they know it a good idea?

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Every time you inhale you are breathing in a little bacteria from your own mouth. Doesn't mean you are gonna get sick. You have bacteria pretty much on every inch of your body. Doesn't mean you get sick.

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And if you're exhaling a virus or bacteria, then you already have been exposed to said virus or bacteria. If you're asymptomatic, it's not gonna be a problem.

But if your lungs are compromised from Covid, you're at home laying on the couch or in a hospital; you're not out in public wearing a mask.

You're pulling at straws, but please keep going, I wanna see which one comes up next.

cone said:

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if your asymptomatic or evenly pre symptomatic, why is that not a problem?

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Because you already have it. You can't get worse from breathing it in again. It's a ludicrous argument.

I guess I'll change my tune when I start seeing a rise in lobar bacterial pneumonia as compared to bilateral viral pneumonia. But until that day, wear a mask.

Yukon Cornelius said:

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However those homemade masks are being equated to what doctors wear and how they wear them.

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Where is anyone saying what the normal person is wearing is equal to what doctors wear?

I think the legit question is do these cheap masks even work to slow the spread and the legit answer is maybe *shrug*

And your argument seems to trip over itself.

First you say masks are useless because they don't prevent droplet spread.

Then you shift to masks are dangerous because they cause people to re-inhale their own droplets.

If the masks don't prevent droplet spread, then logically there's no droplets to re-inhale.

Which is it?

cone said:

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I think the legit question is do these cheap masks even work to slow the spread and the legit answer is maybe *shrug*

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Agreed. But the same can be said for covering your mouth when you cough. Does it prevent viruses from spreading? Hard to tell. But logically it would seem to help at least to a tiny degree, and it's a small ask of people.

The fact that there are so many people so triggered by having to wear a mask is telling.

Yukon Cornelius said:

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I never said they dont prevent droplet spread. A virus can be smaller than bacteria by a magnitude of 100.

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Ok, so they help prevent droplet spread and that's why we wear them.

So, are we done here?

how does a comment like this even get blue starred? It's like people are talking about 2 different things. Droplets vs aerosols. Bacteria are large and get caught in the cloth. Viruses are much much much smaller and probably don't.

Before the pandemic, there was absolutely no study that demonstrated cloth masks were effective, and now all of a sudden they are?

I wear a cloth mask when in my office and N95 when i see patients, and my throat feels and looks like crap at the end of the day. Yes breathing in your own bacteria can harm your throat. Ever get a sore in your mouth or an eye infection. Guess what the most likely culprit is? Yeah your own normal flora.

personally, I think a lot of people are "triggered" by the overarching moralizing and a learned resistance to elite panic and how that degrades messaging

if the public health experts came out and said "we think masks work for this but we aren't sure and we need to at least try something to allow for economic activity to recover while working to manage spread and simple masks are cheap enough now for mass adoption", I think you'd get far less resistance

but our elites think the rabble are stupid so they imagine the only way to get compliance is to frame it in moral terms, which paradoxically(?) gets more resistance and possibly less compliance

cone said:

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personally, I think a lot of people are "triggered" by the overarching moralizing and a learned resistance to elite panic and how that degrades messaging

if the public health experts came out and said "we think masks work for this but we aren't sure and we need to at least try something to allow for economic activity to recover while working to manage spread and simple masks are cheap enough now for mass adoption", I think you'd get far less resistance

but our elites think the rabble are stupid so they imagine the only way to get compliance is to frame it in moral terms, which paradoxically(?) gets more resistance and possibly less compliance

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I agree with you on "why", but not sure I think an approach of "we think this works but we aren't sure but we need to try something" works on the American public.

We *know* social distancing helps prevent spread (whether that's a good long-term approach is another debate). Yet we all saw how the half-measures went early on -- you tell people to stay 6 feet apart, they stay 3 feet apart. Tell them groups of no larger than 10? They'll assume 20 is OK.

And that was going on long before we knew how much of the data was questionable. I mean hell, it's why we can't keep bars open -- telling people "hey if you social distance properly then your watering hole will be there for you and their business won't go under" didn't work. People still packed the bars and said to hell with social distancing, and now we've got businesses about to go under.

"We think" and "let's at least try" would be a failed message from the start.

It seems there is plenty of evidence.

oldyella said:

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If homemade masks are so effective, then why don't we use them in hospitals on the staff and patients? Perhaps the doctors on here will lead by example and start treating their patients using them?

Also studies done with bacteria which are much larger do not equate to a virus. There have been 12 different studies (double blind) conducted over the last 10 years on using the standard surgical mask protecting against the flu virus, yes this is different but it is still an RNA virus, all 12 of those studies came back saying there is very little to no protection using a surgical mask and the N95 is the only protection. I will take those results over half baked studies using bacteria.

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Literally everything you're talking about refers to protection of the individual wearing the mask.

Wearing face coverings to prevent spread of Covid is almost entirely concerned with protecting the people around you from you, not the other way around.

Yukon Cornelius said:

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Not really. Its human nature. Society is scared and will look to anything that gives them peace. Masks provide that. Governments look for ways to take more control. Theyve done that.

Riddle me this. How is it a good idea that breathing in your own bacteria from your mouth during a time when peoples lungs may be comprised before they know it a good idea?

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So by your logic, if you already have it, it's better to spread the bacteria YOU ALREADY HAVE to others who do not yet have it? Ouch.

aggiematt07 said:

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Visuals like this don't help the discussion. This is bacteria, bacteria =\= virus. So as pretty as that is to look at. It means nothing in regards to stopping a virus from traveling through the mask. It says so in the commentary. A seatbelt can restrain an adult from flying out of car. Therefore it should stop a child from flying out too, expect that's not how it works and why boosters are required. I wear a mask because it's become the socially accepted thing to do but don't post these as "proof" because it's apples and oranges.

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Let me get this straight... you honestly think that viruses are going to slip through a mask and travel at the same velocity/distance as if no mask were there?

If I throw a baseball at your face and you have a tennis racquet, you will be fine. If I throw sand at your face and you have that same racquet, yeah the racket will slow some of that sand down. So yes the mask is doing something, but not as much as you might think which is the bigger issue. Will people be more "risky" with a false sense of protection. Cloth is not n95 or surgical, you are wearing a fomite on your face and the reusing it and if your glasses get fogged up, guess what, that's respiratory drops on your glasses and on your mask and on your hands because you keep adjusting your mask because of the fogging glasses. Nobody is trained to use these for any protections that doesn't come with additional risk to you or others.

"not as much as you might think" is subjective.

There's a lot more people walking around thinking masks don't help at all than there are people walking around thinking their bandanna masks are equivalent to N-95's.

Either way, the counter should be "masks don't work as well as many people think" rather than "masks don't do anything".

Yukon Cornelius said:

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Serious question: How can any rational human being believe/think these masks are beneficial? There is no requirement for material/design/proper use. I see people wearing them with massive holes in the side as it billows from their face. Not likely helping. And material. Have materials been tested and shown to help? People are using just cotton Tshirts and other fabric bought at hobby lobby with zero consideration/design to prevent virus penetration. When I think about it logically the masks dont seem to provide any actual benefit.

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Serious answer: It doesn't have to stop an individual virus particle (very small), it only has to catch the respiratory droplets - much larger.

The size of the virus is not really relevant to the discussion. The reason to wear masks is to prevent the spread of respiratory droplets, which is how the virus are shown to spread. Respiratory droplets are larger (>5 microns) and typically drop to the ground under gravity and travel a limited distance (<6 feet). This is why we have the 6 feet social distancing guideline.

Cloth masks won't entirely prevent droplets from spreading, but they have been shown to reduce spreading to some degree.

From what I understand, the only infectious disease doctors who do not promote masks because of their effectiveness are actually making the case that it is a false sense of security and people should be isolating and being socially distant instead. It's an entirely different argument than what people will typically have.

Alas, the bottom line is, wearing a mask is low cost, easy to do, and potentially could reduce the spread. If wearing a mask in combination with other things helps to prevent spread, then it could help economic rebound and in-person schooling. I realize it's not perfect for every person in every situation (cue Capitol Ag to tell us about how harmful it is for power lifters), but we should at least try as much as reasonable.

I would also hope that our leaders are working on higher quality masks and face shield availability. Face shields appear to be even more effective than cloth masks and address some of the concerns people have about them (comfort, breathing, etc.). Additionally, people using higher quality masks will improve spread avoidance even more. The Japanese government gave 2 masks to 50 million households to try to abate the spread -- probably a good move for their economy, which hasn't had to have any lockdowns despite much higher population density and reliance on public transportation. For my Japanese coworkers, avoiding a pandemic is a way of daily life, due to the high population density they experience.

op asks for docs opinions on masks
Docs give opinions
Yukon Cornelius doesn't like it and argues science with them

edit - sorry atag!

agforlife97 said:

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deadbq03 said:

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aggiematt07 said:

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Visuals like this don't help the discussion. This is bacteria, bacteria =\= virus. So as pretty as that is to look at. It means nothing in regards to stopping a virus from traveling through the mask. It says so in the commentary. A seatbelt can restrain an adult from flying out of car. Therefore it should stop a child from flying out too, expect that's not how it works and why boosters are required. I wear a mask because it's become the socially accepted thing to do but don't post these as "proof" because it's apples and oranges.

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Let me get this straight... you honestly think that viruses are going to slip through a mask and travel at the same velocity/distance as if no mask were there?

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The virus in question is 0.125 microns. Surgical masks supposedly will filter at 1 micron.

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This isn't about what particles fit through what material in a vacuum, this is about the mechanics of air movement.

When you breathe with a mask on, a high percentage of what you exhale is leaking out the edges of the mask with low velocity, meaning it doesn't travel far and most likely lands on your body. Whatever air goes through the mask will be traveling at even less velocity and fall onto your shirt as you walk or onto the floor.

The same mechanisms that justify social distancing are at play here... these viruses aren't riding on air molecules that are going to float in perpetuity. They're riding on vapor that will eventually fall to the ground. Anything you do to slow it it down decreases the distance it will go.

Mask use isn't a magic pill.

It's mask use + social distancing + hand washing

(because yes, a mask-wearing Covid spreader will be covered in the stuff, but at least they won't be launching it across the room)

If I'm wearing a mask and someone spits in my face, chances are, I'm going to get crap in my mouth. If I'm wearing a mask and that person is wearing a mask and spits in my face, I'm not getting crap in my mouth.